INTRODUCING THE EXTERNAL LINK MODEL FIGURE 9


Fig 9

Radiographic position for control and linked rats.

Posterior body angles of rats radiographed while in the extension positioning jig. Five groups of rats are shown: sham surgery rats (CSURG)), never-linked SAU bearing rats (CSAU), and experimental rats linked in either flexion (EF), neutral (EN), or rotation (ER) configurations. Negative PBAs (below the reference line) represent intersegmental extension, whereas positive values reflect flexion. The control rats readily moved into extension, whereas the experimental rats did not. The boxes report interquartile ranges, bars within the boxes identify the median values, and the whiskers extend to the largest and smallest values within 1.5 box lengths. Outlying values (1.5-3 box lengths away) are represented by open circles. The number of animals in each group are shown within each box.