Animal Models of Spinal Cord Ischemia

A serious complication of aortic cross clamping during thoracic and thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysm repair surgery is ischemic spinal cord injury (ISCI) and subsequent postoperative paraplegia. Several experimental models have been developed in various species that reproduce this clinical problem. This chapter provides a comprehensive summary of these experimental models and provides specific details regarding model reproducibility, the techniques used to induce ischemia and the predominant clinical and histopathological outcomes that are associated with these different models.