Western blot for BDNF and synapsin-I was performed according to the previously described method (Jung et al., 2016 (link)). The spinal cord tissues covering approximately 1 cm of the rostral and caudal spinal cord at the injury area were prepared and washed with ice-cold PBS and sonicated in 400–600 mL of Triton lysis buffer. Protein separation was performed using a 10% polyacrylamide with 0.05% bis-acrylamide. Proteins were then transferred to nitrocellulose and the blots were probed with anti-BDNF rabbit polyclonal antibody (1:1,000, Santa Cruz Biotechnology, Santa Cruz, CA, USA), anti-synapsin-I rabbit monoclonal antibody (1:1,000, Cell Signaling Technology, Beverly, MA, USA), and anti-β-actin mouse monoclonal antibody (1:3,000, Santa Cruz Biotechnology). Peroxidase anti-rabbit IgG (1:5,000; 1:5,000 Vector Laboratories, Burlingame, CA, USA), and peroxidase anti-mouse IgG (1:5,000, Vector Laboratories) were used as the secondary antibodies. Immunoreactivity was detected by enhanced chemiluminescence (Santa Cruz Biotechnology).