SENSORIMOTOR STIMULATION TO IMPROVE LOCOMOTOR RECOVERY AFTER SPINAL-CORD INJURY

Functional recovery after CNS injury may depend, in part, upon reorgan ization of undamaged neural pathways. Spinal cord circuits are capable of significant reorganization, in the form of both activity dependent and injury-induced plasticity. This plasticity is manifest behavioura lly in the ability of spinal animals to learn new locomotor tasks. Rec ent work with spinal-injured humans demonstrates that training can imp rove functional locomotor abilities. New methodologies to enhance limb movement are designed to exploit further the plastic capabilities of the spinal cord by reinforcing appropriate connections in an activity dependent manner. In the future, these methods might also prove useful in guiding and strengthening functional synaptogenesis of regeneratin g axons to maximize their contribution towards restoration of function .