ACTIVATING MOTOR CONTROL CENTERS IN THE SPINAL CORD

According to the traditional understanding of human movement, all neural centers that control movement are in the brain, and the spinal cord is a conduit for information, with little or no ability to process information and control functional movement. And apart from some simple reflexes controlled by the spinal cord, no complex movement could possibly be controlled by these neural centers in the spinal cord, which are much less complex than the human brain.This view is slowly changing. We have known for some time that lower vertebrate animals have movement control centers outside the brain, often in the lower parts of the spinal cord. Some animals, for example, can learn to walk again after complete spinal cord injuries. Recently, a group of scientists and clinicians have begun to look at the possibility that such motor control centers might exist in the human spinal cord. This hasn’t led to humans being able to walk again after complete spinal cord injury, but several recent studies have shown that the lower spinal cord does have some ability to control repetitive movement of the legs.In these studies, individuals with spinal cord injury undergo a process of highly stereotyped passive leg movements over weeks of daily training. In one method, the individual is positioned on a mechanical treadmill, with the body weight supported by an overhead sling, and the legs are passively moved with a reciprocal walking-like pattern. After weeks of such exercise, some individuals find that their legs seem to “learn” to move in a repetitive cycle – something previously thought to be impossible. Further research could uncover additional motor control centers in the spinal cord, and, if medications to enhance the function of these neural centers were developed, this could lead to dramatic improvements in movement control for individuals with spinal cord injury.
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