Movement Recovery Lab Published in Clinical Neurophysiology
Paper Identifies Key Timing Mechanism for Enhancing Motor Responses
A new study from the Movement Recovery Lab and colleagues, shows that carefully coordinating stimulation of the brain and spinal cord can enhance the body’s movement signals. Published in Clinical Neurophysiology, the research provides new evidence that synchronizing these signals strengthens motor responses in both healthy individuals and people with chronic cervical spinal cord injury (SCI).
The team combined gentle magnetic pulses to the brain (transcranial magnetic stimulation) with mild electrical stimulation of the spinal cord and compared these noninvasive results with recordings from patients receiving epidural spinal stimulation during surgery. They found that muscle responses were strongest when signals from both reached the cervical spinal cord at the same moment. This shows that timing plays a crucial role in activating the nerve circuits that control movement.
Even in people with chronic spinal cord injury, the effect was still present, suggesting that some nerve pathways remain capable of working together after injury. These findings identify the cervical spinal cord as a promising target for both invasive and noninvasive paired stimulation strategies, supporting future therapies that use paired brain and spinal stimulation to improve recovery and restore movement.
