Which of the following is/are NOT components of primary spinal cord
injury? (there can be more than one correct answer)
a. compression
b. herniated disc
c. contusion
d. glutamate release
e. laceration due to fracture
f. mechanical disruption of blood vessels
g. both a & c
h. both b & d
i. All are related to primary injury

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Request for Question Clarification by kutsavi-ga on 02 Dec 2002 13:32 PST

For your specific question, could you define "primary spinal cord
injury?"  I have questions in my mind regarding traumatic vs.
spontaneous injury, etc.  Also, could you provide a guideline as to
"spinal cord" vs. cauda equina, etc...give a C-T vertebral
limit...just in case and to add specificity?

Thanks,
Kutsavi

Hi 

All of the answers which you have listed can be components of primary
spinal cord injury.  "primary" spinal cord injury occurs from
processes which directly injure the components of the spinal cord. 
Lacerations, compressions (from a herniated disc or blunt trauma),
disruption of blood vessels are all mechanisms for injuring the spinal
cord.  Glutamate release occurs with primary injury (although this is
often only mentioned in secondary injury) and is thought to contribute
to secondary injury, via excitotoxic cell death, along with ischemia
(lack of blood flow), swelling, and other sequela which can result
from the initial injury.

A nice page from eMedicine describing spinal cord injuries. Search for
"primary SCIs":
http://www.emedicine.com/EMERG/topic553.htm

This page contains a fairly thorough Q&A format discussion of spinal
cord injuries:
http://www.cureparalysis.org/faq/

Another good page describing spinal injury - mentions the glutamate
excitotoxicity topic.
http://www.genpat.uu.se/persons/faro/intro.html

Another page describing spinal cord injury and including a list of
mechanisms for primary spinal cord injury (the discussion of secondary
injury is brief however) (original page is unresponsive but the 'view
as html' link works)
http://216.239.53.100/search?q=cache:rHf0Ple3dgQC:61.222.151.218/er119/sked/conspineread.doc+%22primary+spinal+cord+injury%22+mechanism&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

search strategy:
Google: "primary spinal cord injury" mechanism
Google: primary "spinal injury" "glutamate release"