A semi-reduced, minimally restrained lamprey preparation was used to investigate the impact of movement and movement-related feedback during D-glutamate-induced locomotion. The preparation consisted of the trunk alone with the spinal cord exposed to the bathing solution. Two conditions were compared using electromyography or nerve recording: (i) muscle and spinal cord, (ii) spinal cord alone su...

Development of sensory projections was studied in cultured spinal segments with attached dorsal root ganglia. In spinal segments from stage 30 (E6.5) and older chicken embryos, prelabeled muscle and cutaneous afferents established appropriate projections. Cutaneous afferents terminated solely within the dorsolateral laminae, whereas some muscle afferents (presumably Ia afferents) projected vent...

BACKGROUND Spinal cord compression is a known cause of spinal cord injury. The purpose of this study is to measure pressure response during graded spinal cord compression. This information will be important in evaluating the amount of canal compromise that can be tolerated before risking neurological injury secondary to cord compression. To date, there is no published study that has evaluated p...

Although spinal cord injury without radiographic abnormality (SCIWORA) literally refers to the specific type of spinal cord injury, however, some extents of spinal cord injuries can be detected by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in most of cases. We introduce an atypical case of spinal cord injury without radiologic abnormality. A 42-year-old male tetraplegic patient underwent MRI and computed...

PURPOSE To assess physiological spinal cord motion during the cardiac cycle compared with the influence of respiration based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) measurements. MATERIALS AND METHODS Anterior-posterior spinal cord motion within the spinal canal was assessed in 16 healthy volunteers (median age, 25 years) by cardiac-triggered and cardiac-gated gradient echo pulse sequence MRI. Im...

The immobilized, low-spinal turtle produces 3 forms of the fictive scratch reflex in response to tactile stimulation of specific sites on its body surface (Robertson et al., 1985). We used complete transections of the spinal cord at different rostrocaudal levels to reveal the minimum length of spinal cord sufficient to produce each scratch form. Additional transections revealed the progressive ...

INTRODUCTION Scant data are available regarding ischemic insult to the spinal cord and the responsible blood supply. Therefore, we aimed to investigate a correlation between atherosclerosis of adjacent vessels and spinal cord ischemia. MATERIALS AND METHODS In 20 unembalmed adult cadavers, samples of the vertebral arteries and aorta were removed and the degree of atherosclerosis with subseque...

The analysis of the interaction and synchronization of relatively large ensembles of neurons is fundamental for the understanding of complex functions of the nervous system. It is known that the temporal synchronization of neural ensembles is involved in the generation of specific motor, sensory or cognitive processes. Also, the intersegmental coherence of spinal spontaneous activity may indica...

The spinal cord is an integral part of central nervous system, therefore it can be expected that spinal cord has the same properties as the brain. Movement activity is realized by the activation of individual motoneurons of various spinal cord segments under the influence of analytical function of the spinal cord. When a hypothesis is accepted that the mentioned large volume of spinal cord whit...

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...