The recovery of walking function following spinal cord injury (SCI) is of major importance to patients and clinicians. In experimental SCI studies, a rat model is widely used to assess walking function, following thoracic spinal cord lesion. In an effort to provide a resource which investigators can refer to when seeking the most appropriate functional assay, the authors have compiled and categorized the behavioral assessments used to measure the deficits and recovery of the gait in thoracic SCI rats. These categories include kinematic and kinetic measurements. Within this categorization, we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each type of measurement. The present review includes the type of outcome data that they produce, the technical difficulty and the time required to potentially train the animals to perform them, and the need for expensive or highly specialized equipment. The use of multiple kinematic and kinetic parameters is recommended to identify subtle deficits and processes involved in the compensatory mechanisms of walking function after experimental thoracic SCI in rats.

脊髓损伤（SCI）后步行功能的恢复对患者和临床医生至关重要。在实验性SCI研究中，大鼠模型被广泛用于评估胸脊髓损伤后的步行功能。为了提供一种可供研究人员在寻求最合适的功能测定方法时可以参考的资源，作者对用于评估胸廓SCI大鼠步态缺陷和步态恢复的行为评估进行了汇总和分类。这些类别包括运动学和动力学测量。在此分类中，我们讨论了每种类型的测量的优缺点。本篇综述包括它们产生的结果数据的类型，技术难度以及潜在地训练动物执行它们所需的时间，以及对昂贵或高度专业化的设备的需求。建议使用多种运动学和动力学参数来确定大鼠实验性SCI后微弱的缺陷和参与步行功能补偿机制的过程。