Animals

A total of sixty adult female Sprague Dawley rats (175–200g) (Harlan) were used in this study. All surgical interventions and postoperative animal care were provided in accordance with the guide for the care and use of laboratory animals, and the guidelines for rodent survival surgery provided by the Animal Care and Use Committees of Temple University.

Congenic Nogo/OMgp/MAG triple knockout mice were generated by breeding congenice lines of Nogo/OMgp double knockout mice obtained from Dr. Binhai Zheng (University of California at San Diego) and of MAG knockout mice obtained from Dr. Jae K. Lee (University of Miami). 2–3 months old, both sexes of Nogo^−/−/OMgp^−/−/MAG^−/− mice and age-matched C57BL/6J mice (The Jackson Laboratory) were used. Mice were genotyped at the time of weaning by tail clipping and PCR analysis using the primers in earlier study (Lee et al., 2010).