Of the millions of people with paralysis, only a few dozen have gotten spinal stimulators through experimental trials. But incremental breakthroughs could lead to better access and success.
to what changes in the vertebrae: Signals from the electrodes can excite a certain type of neuron in the nerves surrounding the spinal cord, as an international team of scientists found by examining mice. They note these neurons typically aren’t needed to help the rodents take steps—the cells only become activated for walking after the electrical stimulation treatment.
Identifying these cells “is an important step towards gaining a better understanding of how the spinal cord controls movement” and how this therapy “improves walking function after a severe spinal cord injury,” says, a professor at the Medical University of Vienna who studies the way our bodies control locomotion, but wasn’t involved in the new report. It might one day lead to drugs that target these neurons, too, she adds.
Mapping the cells that become activated and the genes they express—in the case of the mouse model, the researchers pinpointed a gene in the neurons called Vsx2—can show scientists how spinal cords reorganize cell networks after injury. That’s the principle behind epidural electrical stimulation, the technique that helped Summers walk, as well as nine patients in the new study.
That led Squair and his colleagues to investigate which neurons wind up taking the lead. After a spinal cord injury, healthy circuits become disrupted, says , a neurosurgeon at the University of California, Irvine. The activated cells identified in this study are probably intermediaries between the neurons responsible for sensation and those that govern motion, smoothing out that disorganization and streamlining firing circuits.
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