Alexander Rabchevsky

Alexander Rabchevsky is Professor of Physiology in the Spinal Cord & Brain Injury Research Center at the University of Kentucky.

Research Interests: Gene Therapy, Molecular Biology and Pharmacotherapeutics for the Treatment of Spinal Cord Injury.

The major focuses of the laboratory are to alleviate both autonomic and/or hind limb locomotor dysfunction following complete transection or incomplete contusion spinal cord injury (SCI) in rats, respectively. In conjunction with precise surgical and histological approaches, paralleled by behavioral, kinematic and physiological assessments, our laboratory is pursuing the following avenues of research.

1) Employing recombinant viruses to induce site-specific genetic alterations of endogenous cellular responses after SCI in order to elucidate mechanisms contributing to beneficial motor recovery and/or undesirable autonomic pathophysiology.

2) Using molecular biological and biochemical approaches to test novel mitochondrial-targeted compounds that preserve their integrity and show potent neuroprotective properties that translate into improved functional recovery.

3) Using radio telemetry of arterial blood pressure (24/7) in animals with complete SCI at or above high thoracic spinal levels to study a condition termed autonomic dysreflexia (AD) that manifests in hypertension that is often triggered by noxious sensations below the injury level.