Determination of the in vivo loads of the sheep spineIs the sheep a suitable model to study new treatment strategies for the intervertebral disc?

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Hendrik Schmidt
• Subject Area: Orthopaedics, Traumatology, Reconstructive Surgery
• Term: from 2013 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 238118956

The sheep spine shares many histological, anatomical, biochemical and biomechanical behavioral similarities to the human spine, making it increasingly popular as a large animal model for preclinical spine studies. Despite the widespread use of the sheep model, the relevance and usefulness of the results of such studies is sometimes questioned, given that the nature of the loading on the sheep spine is not well known. Therefore, the proposed project is aimed at determining the in vivo loads of cervical and lumbar ovine discs for a variety of activities. The results of this study will serve to complement the existing data, and provide a more complete characterization of the biomechanical environment of the sheep model.For that purpose, a telemetrized vertebral body replacement will be inserted in the fourth cervical and lumbar vertebrae. Additionally, a pressure sensor will be implanted in the center of each adjacent cranial disc. To characterize the sheep as an in vivo model for different spine research questions, the measurement data will be analyzed for different activities. Thereby, a database will be made available to researchers and clinicians, thus allowing them the opportunity to accurately determine how suitable the sheep model is at representing humans for future investigations on the disc. In additional ex vivo studies, the real, three-dimensional loading state should be approximated by simplified, applicable in vitro loading conditions allowing the application of physiological load conditions in vitro.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants