Jc. Slimp et al., SPINE AND SCALP RECORDINGS AS A FUNCTION OF INTENSITY - A MODEL FOR CHANGES DURING SPINAL-CORD MONITORING, Spine (Philadelphia, Pa. 1976), 21(1), 1996, pp. 99-103
Study Design. Spinal cord monitoring has used both spine and scalp rec
ordings as indicators of spinal cord integrity, The relative merits of
spine or scalp recordings to predict the quality of the afferent voll
ey in the somatosensory pathway were addressed in this study by using
various stimulus intensities as a way to model alterations of the size
of the afferent volley. Objectives. The results were analyzed to dete
rmine the correlation of central recordings taken at the spine or scal
p with peripheral recordings. Summary of Background Data. Spinal cord
monitoring with somatosensory evoked potentials has been achieved with
recordings of signals generated by either the spinal cord or the soma
tosensory cortex. Spine recordings are thought to be more stable, yet
little evidence exists to document this statement. Methods. Seven pati
ents were studied in the course of standard intraoperative spinal cord
monitoring. Responses were recorded at the popliteal fossa, thoracic
epidural, cervical spine, and scalp to tibial nerve stimulation at int
ensities varying from 0.5 to 2.0 times muscle twitch threshold. Result
s. Normalized amplitudes of the response at the popliteal fossa used t
o reflect the magnitude of the afferent volley. The amplitudes of the
popliteal fossa response showed a high correlation (r = 0.90) with nor
malized amplitudes of epidural and cervical spine responses and modera
te correlation (r = 0.49) width of the 95% confidence limits for the i
nverse prediction of the afferent volley from epidural and cervical re
sponses was nearly a third narrower than that from scalp responses. At
low stimulus intensities, scalp responses were consistently observed
when spine responses were absent, and scalp responses had lower respon
se thresholds than did spine responses. The latencies of the popliteal
fossa responses were not well correlated with latencies of either the
epidural or cervical responses. Conclusions. Theses correlation and i
nverse prediction data suggest that the size of an afferent volley may
be predicted-more accurately by spine responses than by scalp respons
es. The presence of scalp responses at intensities too low to elicit d
etectable spinal-level responses suggests that scalp responses may be
considered a sensitive indicator of a minimal afferent volley.