Somatotopy of the motor cortex after long-term spinal cord injury or amputation

Abstract

Certain brain-computer interface (BCI) methods use intrinsic signals from the motor cortex to control neuroprosthetic devices. The organization of the motor pathways in those populations likely to use neuroprosthetic devices, therefore, needs to be determined; there is evidence that following disease or injury the representation of the body in the motor cortex may change. In this study, functional MRI measures of somatotopy following spinal cord injury (SCI) showed evidence of changes in limb representations in the motor cortex. Subjects with chronic SCI had unusual cortical patterns of activity when attempting to move limbs below their injury; amputees showed a more normal somatotopy. The functional reorganization may affect optimal implanted electrode placements for invasive BCI methods for these different populations.

Reorganization and Preservation of Motor Control of the Brain in Spinal Cord Injury: A Systematic Review

“…Lower limb motor tasks included foot movement (Alkadhi et al, 2005;Astolfi et al, 2007;Cramer et al, 2005Cramer et al, , 2007Fallani et al, 2007;Halder et al, 2006;Hotz-Boendermaker et al, 2008;Lacourse et al, 1999;Lotze et al, 1999;Turner et al, 2001;Winchester et al, 2005) and toe movement (Castro et al, 2007;Green et al, 1998Green et al, , 1999Sabbah et al, 2002;Shoham et al, 2001;Winchester et al, 2005). Facial motor tasks included lip movement Fallani et al, 2007;Green et al, 1998;Lotze et al, 1999;Mattia et al, 2006;Shoham et al, 2001) and tongue movement (Curt et al, 2002a;Mikulis et al, 2002;Turner et al, 2001). Imagined movement was also investigated in some studies and included lower limb movement (Alkadhi et al, 2005;Cramer et al, 2005;Hotz-Boendermaker et al, 2008;Lacourse et al, 1999;Lotze et al, 1999;Sabbah et al, 2002) and upper limb movement (Lacourse et al, 1999;Sabbah et al, 2002).…”

“…For those studies specifying gender of subjects, one third of studies used only males, while just less than one half used a combination of males and females, with males comprising 70% of the subjects. Among studies, the level and extent of SCI lesions were also variable, with seven articles involving exclusively cervical lesions Fallani et al, 2007;Jurkiewicz et al, 2007;Mattia et al, 2006;Mikulis et al, 2002;Shoham et al, 2001;Winchester et al, 2005), five articles involving lesions in the cervical to thoracic range (Cramer et al, 2005(Cramer et al, , 2007Green et al, 1998Green et al, , 1999Turner et al, 2001), eight articles involving lesions in the thoracic to lumbar range (Alkadhi et al, 2005;Curt et al, 2002a;Halder et al, 2006;Hotz-Boendermaker et al, 2008;Lotze et al, 1999Lotze et al, , 2006Sabbah et al, 2002;Turner et al, 2003), three articles involving lesions in the cervical to lumbar range (Bruehlmeier et al, 1998;Curt et al, 2002b;Lacourse et al, 1999), and one article did not specify lesion location (Castro et al, 2007). In terms of completeness of injury, five articles included exclusively complete injuries (Alkadhi et al, 2005;Castro et al, 2007;Cramer et al, 2005;Curt et al, 2002b;Turner et al, 2003), one article involved exclusively incomplete injuries (Winchester et al, 2005), 13 articles included both complete and incomplete injuries (Cramer et al, 2005(Cramer et al, , 2007Green et al, 1998Green et al, , 1998Halder et al, 2006;HotzBoendermaker...…”

“…In the present review, a number of imaging modalities were used in the included articles, with the primary modality being fMRI (14 articles) (Alkadhi et al, 2005;Cramer et al, 2005Cramer et al, , 2007Curt et al, 2002a;Hotz-Boendermaker et al, 2008;Jurkiewicz et al, 2007;Lotze et al, 1999Lotze et al, , 2006Mikulis et al, 2002;Sabbah et al, 2002;Shoham et al, 2001;Turner et al, 2001Turner et al, , 2003Winchester et al, 2005) and the others including EEG (eight articles) Castro et al, 2007;Fallani et al, 2007;Green et al, 1998Green et al, , 1999Halder et al, 2006;Lacourse et al, 1999;Mattia et al, 2006) and PET (two articles) (Bruehlmeier et al, 1998;Curt et al, 2002b). The imaging and mapping modalities cited in the studies measure plasticity of the brain differently.…”

“…Upper limb motor tasks included wrist or hand movement (Bruehlmeier et al, 1998;Curt et al, 2002aCurt et al, , 2002bJurkiewicz et al, 2007;Lacourse et al, 1999;Mikulis et al, 2002;Turner et al, 2003), finger movement (Curt et al, 2002a;Green et al, 1998Green et al, , 1999Lotze et al, 1999Lotze et al, , 2006Shoham et al, 2001), pinch grip (Lotze et al, 2006), and elbow movement (Curt et al, 2002a;Lotze et al, 1999Lotze et al, , 2006Shoham et al, 2001). Lower limb motor tasks included foot movement (Alkadhi et al, 2005;Astolfi et al, 2007;Cramer et al, 2005Cramer et al, , 2007Fallani et al, 2007;Halder et al, 2006;Hotz-Boendermaker et al, 2008;Lacourse et al, 1999;Lotze et al, 1999;Turner et al, 2001;Winchester et al, 2005) and toe movement (Castro et al, 2007;Green et al, 1998Green et al, , 1999Sabbah et al, 2002;Shoham et al, 2001;Winchester et al, 2005). Facial motor tasks included lip movement Fallani et al, 2007;Green et al, 1998;Lotze et al, 1999;Mattia et al, 2006;Shoham et al, 2001) and tongue movement …”

Changes in pubococcygeus muscle tension in the pelvic floor of rats after spinal cord injury

“…Much effort has been made to reconnect the impaired spinal cord, including stem cell transplant, [1][2][3] nerve transferring, 4 functional electrical stimulation 5 and brain-computer interface, 6 which has brought much hope for their recovery. However, much more work needs to be carried out to accomplish complete recovery of distal spinal cord; therefore, trying to protect the organ and tissue below the injury level, especially treating pelvic floor dysfunction (PFD), seems to be rather important.…”