It has been very difficult to record from interneurons in acute slices of the lumbar spinal cord from mice >3 wk of age. The low success rate and short recording times limit in vitro experimentation on mouse spinal networks to neonatal and early postnatal periods when locomotor networks are still developmentally immature. To overcome this limitation and enable investigation of mature locomotor ...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the cardiopulmonary endurance of subjects with spinal cord injury by measuring the maximal oxygen consumption with varying degrees of spinal cord injury level, age, and regular exercise. METHODS We instructed the subjects to perform exercises using arm ergometer on healthy adults at 20 years of age or older with spinal cord injury, and their maximal oxygen consumption (V...

Constant drive provided to the human lumbar spinal cord by epidural electrical stimulation can cause local neural circuits to generate rhythmic motor outputs to lower limb muscles in people paralysed by spinal cord injury. Epidural spinal cord stimulation thus allows the study of spinal rhythm and pattern generating circuits without their configuration by volitional motor tasks or task-specific...

The level of sustainable excitability within lumbar spinal cord circuitries is one of the factors determining the functional outcome of locomotor therapy after motor-incomplete spinal cord injury. Here, we present initial data using noninvasive transcutaneous lumbar spinal cord stimulation (tSCS) to modulate this central state of excitability during voluntary treadmill stepping in three motor-i...

Spinal cord injury is an uncommon complication of post epidural lumbar anesthesia with acute and delayed progressive neurological complications described. Few cases of post spinal anaesthesia syrinx formation have been reported in literature. We report an interesting case of focal myelomalacia with syrinx formation occurring post lumbar anesthesia in a thity five year old female undergoing open...

Human stepping movements emerge in utero and show several milestones during development to independent walking. Recently, imaging has become an essential tool for investigating the development and function of pattern generation networks in the spinal cord. Here we examine the development of the spinal segmental output by mapping the distribution of motoneuron activity in the lumbosacral spinal ...

We present the extremely unusual case of a 5-year-old boy with a bifocal (cervical as well as lumbar) spinal cord injury without radiographic abnormalities (SCIWORAs). The MRI showed cord oedema at the level of C2 and T10. We propose that during the motor vehicle crash severe propulsion of the head with a flexed lumbar region resulted in a traction injury to the lower thoracic and lumbar spine ...

Lower spinal cord injuries frequently cause sexual dysfunction in men, including erectile dysfunction and an ejaculation disorder. This indicates that the important neural centers for male sexual function are located within the lower spinal cord. It is interesting that the lumbar spinal segments contain several neural circuits, showing a clear sexually dimorphism that, in association with neura...

  Abstract   Objective: To evaluate and review our experience with pediatric spinal injuries and   factors affecting outcome, the authors conducted a retrospective clinical study of 43   cases (32 boys, 11 girls) of pediatric spine injuries treated during four years (January   1999 to December 2003).   Methods: Forty-three children with spinal injuries were studied retrospectively   over four y...

Introduction: Functional MRI methods have been used to study sensorimotor processing in the brain and the Spinal cord. However, these techniques confront unwanted contributions to the measured signal from physiological fluctuations. For the spinal cord imaging, most of the challenges are consequences of cardiac and respiratory movement artifacts that are considered as signifi...