A gelatinous focus with cystic spaces, was found in the posterior funiculus of the 2nd to 3rd lumbar levels of the spinal cord of a Japanese Black heifer, 2 years old, with clinical signs of severe dysstasia. Histopathological examination revealed that the spinal lesion consisted of multifocal and diffuse proliferation of round cells with abundant vacuolar cytoplasm and hyperchromatic nuclei. I...

OBJECT The pathogenesis of syringomyelia in patients with an associated spinal lesion is incompletely understood. The authors hypothesized that in primary spinal syringomyelia, a subarachnoid block effectively shortens the length of the spinal subarachnoid space (SAS), reducing compliance and the ability of the spinal theca to dampen the subarachnoid CSF pressure waves produced by brain expansi...

The transgenic mouse Tg2576 is widely used as a murine model of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and exhibits plaque pathogenesis in the brain and progressive memory impairments. Here we report that Tg2576 mice also have severe spinal cord deficits. At 10 months of age, Tg2576 mice showed a severe defect in the hindlimb extension reflex test and abnormal body trembling and hindlimb tremors when suspend...

Low-lying cord is an uncommon entity, and cord compression due lumbar disc disease is rarely encountered. We discuss our experience with a case of lumbar cord compression secondary to a large disc protrusion, which caused myelopathy in a low-lying/tethered cord. A 77-year-old woman with known spina bifida occulta presented with 6-week history of severe low back pain and progressive paraparesis....

The spinal cord demonstrates several forms of plasticity that resemble brain-dependent learning and memory. Among the most studied form of spinal plasticity is spinal memory for noxious (nociceptive) stimulation. Numerous papers have described central pain as a spinally-stored memory that enhances future responses to cutaneous stimulation. This phenomenon, known as central sensitization, has br...

Brain injuries can interrupt descending neural pathways that convey motor commands from the cortex to spinal motoneurons. Here, we demonstrate a unilateral injury of hindlimb sensorimotor rats with completely transected thoracic cord produces postural asymmetry contralateral flexion and asymmetric withdrawal reflexes within 3 hr, as well in gene expression patterns lumbar cord. The injury-induc...

C57BL/6 (B6) mice develop peripheral neuropathy post-LP-BM5 infection, a murine model of HIV-1 infection, along with the up-regulation of select spinal cord cytokines. We investigated if calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) contributed to the development of peripheral neuropathy by stimulating glial responses. An increased expression of lumbar spinal cord CGRP was observed in vivo, post-LP-BM...

GABA and glycine are excitatory in the immature spinal cord and become inhibitory during development. The shift from depolarizing to hyperpolarizing inhibitory postsynaptic potentials (IPSPs) occurs during the perinatal period in the rat, a time window during which the projections from the brain stem reach the lumbar enlargement. In this study, we investigated the effects of suppressing influen...

Guillain Barre Syndrome (GBS) is a challenging pathology which diagnosis is based essentially on the clinical examination and the results of lumbar puncture. Differential diagnosis must be discussed if the clinical picture is not complete. We present the case of a patient who presented to the emergency department with symptoms evoking both GBS and spinal cord compression. The Radiology showed a...

BACKGROUND Bacterial meningitis is rarely complicated by acute spinal cord involvement (eg, myelitis, ischemic infarction, spinal abscess, or epidural hemorrhage). In spinal cord dysfunction, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is the imaging modality of choice. Still, MRI findings of myelitis due to bacterial meningitis in adults have not been reported. METHODS Spinal MRIs were obtained during ...