Detection of the neuronal activity occurring caudal to the site of spinal cord injury that is elicited during lower limb movement tasks

Abstract

Study design: Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of the spinal cord (spinal fMRI) was used to detect neuronal activity elicited by passive and active lower limb movement tasks, in regions caudal to the injury site in volunteers with spinal cord injury. Objectives: The objectives of this project are: (1) to assess the use of spinal fMRI as a tool for detecting neuronal function in the spinal cord below an injury, and (2) to characterize the neuronal response to active and passive movement tasks. Setting: Institute for Biodiagnostics, National Research Council of Canada, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Methods: fMRI of the spinal cord was carried out in 12 volunteers with cervical or thoracic spinal cord injuries. Spinal fMRI was carried out in a 1.5 T clinical MR system using established methods. Active and passive lower limb movement tasks were performed, and sagittal images spanning the entire lumbar spinal cord were obtained. Results: Activity was detected in all volunteers regardless of the extent of injury. During both active and passive participation, activity was seen caudal to the injury site, although the number of active voxels detected with passive movement was less than with the active movement task. Average percent signal change was 13.6% during active participation and 15.0% during passive participation. Conclusions: Spinal fMRI is able to detect a neuronal response during both active and passive lower limb movement tasks in the spinal cord caudal to the injury site.

Influence of attention focus on neural activity in the human spinal cord during thermal sensory stimulation

“…This method has the potential to be an extremely important clinical tool because it has been shown to be sensitive to differences in neural function between painful and nonpainful sensory stimuli [11][12][13] and has demonstrated spinal cord activity involved with sexual function [14], differences in pain responses in patients with carpal tunnel syndrome compared to healthy controls [15], the effects of multiple-sclerosis on spinal cord function [16,17], and also sensory and motor functions caudal to sites of spinal cord trauma [18,19]. The effects of the descending control from the brainstem and higher cortical structures are as important to the overall spinal cord function and determination of the effects of injury, as are the ascending neural inputs from the periphery.…”

Tactile‐associated fMRI recruitment of the cervical cord in healthy subjects

“…Despite this, seminal studies have shown that spinal cord fMRI is feasible and enables to obtain reliable results both in healthy subjects [Govers et al, 2007;Komisaruk et al, 2002;Kornelsen and Stroman, 2004;Li et al, 2005;Madi et al, 2001;Maieron et al, 2007;Moffitt et al, 2005;Ng et al, 2006;Stracke et al, 2005;Stroman and Ryner, 2001;Stroman et al, , 2002aStroman et al, , 2003aStroman et al, , 2005aYoshizawa et al, 1996] and in patients with spinal cord injury [Kornelsen and Stroman, 2007;Stroman et al, 2002bStroman et al, , 2004.…”

Spatial normalization, bulk motion correction and coregistration for functional magnetic resonance imaging of the human cervical spinal cord and brainstem

“…It has been demonstrated that important neuronal activity involved with modulation of pain and sensory responses can be identified in the brainstem with fMRI [4][5][6]. Similarly, fMRI of the spinal cord (spinal fMRI) has been demonstrated to show areas of activity in the cervical and lumbar regions with high sensitivity and reliability, in response to thermal, sensory, motor and painful stimuli [3,[7][8][9]. Descending modulation of activity in the cervical spinal cord from brainstem regions, corresponding to emotional factors and focused attention, has also been demonstrated during thermal sensory stimulation (unpublished results).…”