The inability to control timely bladder emptying is one of the most serious challenges among the several functional deficits that occur after a complete spinal cord injury. Having demonstrated that electrodes placed epidurally on the dorsum of the spinal cord can be used in animals and humans to recover postural and locomotor function after complete paralysis, we hypothesized that a similar app...

Since 1973, spinal cord stimulation (SCS) has been reported to modulate abnormal motor functions such as spasticity, weakness, ataxia, athetosis, neurogenic bladder, dysarthria, dystonia and torticollis. As reported in 39 papers, improved neurological functions did occur in 45 to 64% of 1,008 patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), spinal cord injury (SCI), cerebral palsy and other dystonic and ...

We reported previously that both transcutaneous electrical spinal cord stimulation and direct pressure stimulation of the plantar surfaces of the feet can elicit rhythmic involuntary step-like movements in noninjured subjects with their legs in a gravity-neutral apparatus. The present experiments investigated the convergence of spinal and plantar pressure stimulation and voluntary effort in the...

Epidural electrical stimulation of the lumbar spinal cord is currently regaining momentum as a neuromodulation intervention in spinal cord injury (SCI) to modify dysregulated sensorimotor functions and augment residual motor capacity. There is ample evidence that it engages spinal circuits through the electrical stimulation of large-to-medium diameter afferent fibers within lumbar and upper sac...

Locomotor behavior is controlled by specific neural circuits called central pattern generators primarily located at the lumbosacral spinal cord. These locomotor-related neuronal circuits have a high level of automaticity; that is, they can produce a "stepping" movement pattern also seen on electromyography (EMG) in the absence of supraspinal and/or peripheral afferent inputs. These circuits can...

Nocebo hyperalgesia is an increase in subjective pain perception after a patient or subject underwent an inert treatment without any active ingredient. For example, verbal suggestion of increased pain can enhance both pain experience and responses in pain-related cortical brain areas. However, changes in cortical pain responses may be secondary to earlier amplification of incoming pain signals ...

Stimulation of sciatic nerve produced a rise in arterial blood pressure followed by a fall with an increase in the rate and depth of respiration in dogs under pentobarbitone anaesthesia. Application of cotton swabs soaked with GABA in 0.9 % saline to the spinal cord at Ll and L. segments did not change the basal arterial pressure and respiratory rate, but elicited only the pressor effect of sci...

Trans-spinal direct current (tsDC) stimulation is a modulator of spinal excitability and can influence cortically elicited muscle contraction in a polarity-dependent fashion. When combined with low-frequency repetitive cortical stimulation, cathodal tsDC [tsDC(-)] produces a long-term facilitation of cortically elicited muscle actions. We investigated the ability of this combined stimulation pa...

In this study, the neuroanatomy of the swine lumbar spinal cord, particularly the spatial orientation of dorsal roots was correlated to the anatomical landmarks of the lumbar spine and to the magnitude of motor evoked potentials during epidural electrical stimulation (EES). We found that the proximity of the stimulating electrode to the dorsal roots entry zone across spinal segments was a criti...