Self-Sustained Motor Activity Triggered by Interlimb Reflexes in Chronic Spinal Cord Injury, Evidence of Functional Ascending Propriospinal Pathways

The loss or reduction of supraspinal inputs after spinal cord injury provides a unique opportunity to examine the plasticity of neural pathways within the spinal cord. In a series of nine experiments on a patient, quadriplegic due to spinal cord injury, we investigated interlimb reflexes and self-sustained activity in completely paralyzed and paretic muscles due to a disinhibited propriospinal pathway. Electrical stimuli were delivered over the left common peroneal nerve at the fibular head as single stimuli or in trains at 2–100 Hz lasting 1 s. Single stimuli produced a robust interlimb reflex twitch in the contralateral thumb at a mean latency 69 ms, but no activity in other muscles. With stimulus trains the thumb twitch occurred at variable subharmonics of the stimulus rate, and strong self-sustained activity developed in the contralateral wrist extensors, outlasting both the stimuli and the thumb reflex by up to 20 s. Similar behavior was recorded in the ipsilateral wrist extensors and quadriceps femoris of both legs, but not in the contralateral thenar or peroneal muscles. The patient could not terminate the self-sustained activity voluntarily, but it was abolished on the left by attempted contractions of the paralyzed thumb muscles of the right hand. These responses depend on the functional integrity of an ascending propriospinal pathway, and highlight the plasticity of spinal circuitry following spinal cord injury. They emphasize the potential for pathways below the level of injury to generate movement, and the role of self-sustained reflex activity in the sequelae of spinal cord injury.