[TNJC] Neuro Journal Club this week (6/5, 2pm, Tuesday)

[Ben Dongsung Huh]

 

Dear all, 

For this week's TNJC, Thomas Desautels will present the following paper:

http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/04/07/brain.awu038.full

Altering Spinal Cord Excitability Enables Voluntary Movements After Chronic Complete Paralysis in Humans.

Angeli, Edgerton, Gerasimenko, and Harkema, 2014. 

Abstract:Previously, we reported that one individual who had a motor complete, but sensory incomplete spinal cord injury regained voluntary movement after 7 months of epidural stimulation and stand training. We presumed that the residual sensory pathways were critical in this recovery. However, we now report in three more individuals voluntary movement occurred with epidural stimulation immediately after implant even in two who were diagnosed with a motor and sensory complete lesion. We demonstrate that neuromodulating the spinal circuitry with epidural stimulation, enables completely paralysed individuals to process conceptual, auditory and visual input to regain relatively fine voluntary control of paralysed muscles. We show that neuromodulation of the sub-threshold motor state of excitability of the lumbosacral spinal networks was the key to recovery of intentional movement in four of four individuals diagnosed as having complete paralysis of the legs. We have uncovered a fundamentally new intervention strategy that can dramatically affect recovery of voluntary movement in individuals with complete paralysis even years after injury.

See you then!

TNJC website:   www.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk/tnjc/

Future presenter list:

Gergo	13/5/2014
Joana	20/5/2014
Mehdi	27/5/2014
Federico	03/6/2014

Ben Dongsung Huh
Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit