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

羊脊柱与人类脊柱在组织学、解剖学、生物化学和生物力学行为上有许多相似之处，使其作为临床前脊柱研究的大型动物模型越来越受欢迎。尽管绵羊模型被广泛使用，但由于对绵羊脊柱载荷的性质并不清楚，因此这些研究结果的相关性和实用性有时受到质疑。因此，拟定项目旨在确定绵羊颈椎间盘和腰椎椎间盘在各种活动中的体内载荷。本研究的结果将补充现有的数据，并提供一个更完整的表征羊模型的生物力学环境。为此，将在第四颈椎和腰椎中植入遥测椎体置换物。此外，将在每个相邻颅盘的中心植入压力传感器。为了表征绵羊作为不同脊柱研究问题的体内模型，将针对不同活动分析测量数据。因此，研究人员和临床医生将可以使用数据库，从而使他们有机会准确地确定绵羊模型在代表人类方面的适用性，以便将来在椎间盘上进行研究。在额外的体外研究中，应通过简化的、适用的体外载荷条件来近似真实的三维载荷状态，从而允许在体外应用生理载荷条件。

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.