Damage to the central nervous system (CNS) causes significant
loss of function, reduced quality of life, and substantial cost
to society. Damage can be caused by disease, stroke, or trauma.
After CNS injury, there may be some recovery, which arises by
the formation of new connections in the brain. An approach to
improving recovery is to stimulate the mechanisms that form
these new connections. Stem cell therapy is a promising avenue
for promoting recovery of CNS function. An important goal of
this area of research is to identify which stem cells are most
effective and to understand how they promote recovery. An
obstacle to achieving these goals is that lesions are variable
and it is difficult to quantify the formation of new
connections. We have developed a lesion model that takes
advantage of a pathway containing large, distinct synaptic
terminations. This model permits quantitative, robust assessment
of lesion-induced sprouting. The lesion is highly reproducible
and the number and precision of induced conne