Grant: Master's Award: Canada Graduate Research Scholarships - Master's program

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is an incurable, globally inflicted and life-altering physical condition, affecting over 15 million people worldwide. Those affected by SCI, most commonly from everyday events including vehicle accidents or falls, are not only impacted by the injury itself but also by various secondary pathologies (e.g., chronic pain). While underrepresented in preclinical research, males are disproportionately affected by SCI compared to females. Research thus far has demonstrated that while also being more commonly affected, males also experience worse functional and inflammatory outcomes in recovery to SCI. Sex hormones and sex-related gene expression differentially affect recovery after SCI; however, the mechanisms underlying the sex effect demonstrated throughout SCI literature are critically underexplored. This research will investigate interactions and discriminate the impact of sex hormone expression related to gonadal development (i.e., ovaries or testes) and the implications of biological sex chromosomes (i.e., XX vs XY) on SCI recovery. This investigation will evaluate functional changes using both assessments to measure hindlimb motor function and anxiety-like behaviour, as well as inflammatory effects by investigating the lesion, key neuro-immune cell characteristics and neuronal integrity post-SCI. Unveiling the mechanisms contributing to biological sex-specific recovery outcomes will undoubtedly highlight novel therapeutic pathways to support sex-specific rehabilitation, shifting the current preclinical SCI research paradigm to acknowledge the effect of sex hormones and chromosomes as determinants of SCI outcomes.