ABSTRACT
The fundamental goals of experimental scoliosis are to produce ideal models of scoliosis, which are comparable to human idiopathic scoliosis and to clarify the etiology and develop new therapeutic methods. This chapter summarizes the experimental models of scoliosis, with emphasis on the experimental procedures for producing scoliosis and the effects of species, age and size of the experimental animal. Animal models of scoliosis are divided into two groups, spontaneous and induced scoliosis. Immobilization has proven to be one of the ways that induces scoliosis in animals. Intercostal nerve resection, including rhizotomy, is one of the procedures that produce scoliosis constantly. From the view point of the direction of a tether to the spinal column, tethering procedures for producing scoliosis in animals were divided into two groups: a posterior tether and a unilateral tether. Most of the experiments related to the animal models of scoliosis were conducted by analyzing morphological changes of the spine due to each procedure.
