Electrical stimulation (ES) of the spinal cord is a promising and relatively recent breakthrough in spinal cord injury recovery. Inspiratory breathing is a crucial function often disrupted by spinal cord injury. ES has been shown to restore regular breathing function in rats (Kowalski & et. al, 2013), which we int end to replicate and further test. Inflammation is the body’s natural response to stress or injury but can cause harmful damage to tissues. Excessive inflammation can even interrupt critical bodily functions, furthering the damage. This experiment aims to uncover whether ES of the spinal cord has any effect on levels of inflammation by testing for levels of microglia activation and pro-inflammatory cytokines after subjecting Sprague-Dawley retired breeder rats to 30 minutes of ES or mock-ES at the C2 level. Then, we will perform immunohistochemistry on fixed spinal cord tissue to probe for CD11b, GFAP, and NeuN (cell identification markers for microglia, glial cells, and neurons); the pro-inflammatory cytokines TNF-α, IL-1β and IL-6; and the enzymes arginase, and iNOS. Finally, we will quantify the data using fluorescent microscopy through stereoscopic cell counting and measuring pixel intensity.