Abstract
Spinal cord injuries (SCI) are disruptive neurological events that severly affect the body leading to the interruption of sensorimotor and autonomic pathways. Recent research highlighted SCI-related alterations extend beyond than the expected network, involving most of the central nervous system and goes far beyond primary sensorimotor cortices. The present perspective offers an alternative, useful way to interpret conflicting findings by focusing on the deafferented and deefferented body as the central object of interest. After an introduction to the main processes involved in reorganization according to SCI, we will focus separately on the body regions of the head, upper limbs, and lower limbs in complete, incomplete, and deafferent SCI participants. On one hand, the imprinting of the body’s spatial organization is entrenched in the brain such that its representation likely lasts for the entire lifetime of patients, independent of the severity of the SCI. However, neural activity is extremely adaptable, even over short time scales, and is modulated by changing conditions or different compensative strategies. Therefore, a better understanding of both aspects is an invaluable clinical resource for rehabilitation and the successful use of modern robotic technologies.
Highlights
Accepted: 12 January 2022Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a devastating neurological injury that mostly affects young individuals, severely limiting their normal life activities
The studies discussed in this paper show that peripheral and central nervous system (CNS) lesions can induce neural reorganization within the central somatosensory and motor/body representations
How the brain processes the flow of signals following a body-brain disconnection due to a complete Spinal cord injuries (SCI) remains largely unknown
Summary
Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a devastating neurological injury that mostly affects young individuals, severely limiting their normal life activities. The injury is immediately accompanied by a sustained cascade of biological events [3,4,5], termed “secondary injuries.”. These dynamic effects lead to neuroplastic changes below and above the lesion throughout the central nervous system (CNS), including the brain [4]. But encompassing different approaches, whereby the body and its representations in the nervous system, act as a bridge between neurobiological and clinical/behavioral outcomes. The first section summarizes the main structural and functional neuroplastic events that typically occur throughout the CNS following SCI and that unfolds at different spatial and temporal scales. A better understanding of the neurobiological and clinical/behavioral outcomes will allow the development of appropriate therapeutic strategies
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