TY - JOUR
T1 - Windup of flexion reflexes in chronic human spinal cord injury
T2 - A marker for neuronal plateau potentials?
AU - Hornby, T. G.
AU - Rymer, W. Z.
AU - Benz, E. N.
AU - Schmit, B. D.
PY - 2003/1/1
Y1 - 2003/1/1
N2 - The physiological basis of flexion spasms in individuals after spinal cord injury (SCI) may involve alterations in the properties of spinal neurons in the flexion reflex pathways. We hypothesize that these changes would be manifested as progressive increases in reflex response with repetitive stimulus application (i.e., "windup") of the flexion reflexes. We investigated the windup of flexion reflex responses in 12 individuals with complete chronic SCI. Flexion reflexes were triggered using trains of electrical stimulation of plantar skin at variable intensities and inter-stimulus intervals. For threshold and suprathreshold stimulation, windup of both peak ankle and hip flexion torques and of integrated tibialis anterior electromyographic activity was observed consistently in all patients at inter-stimulus intervals ≤3 s. For subthreshold stimuli, facilitation of reflexes occurred only at intervals ≤1 s. Similarly, the latency of flexion reflexes decreased significantly at intervals ≤1 s. Patients that were receiving anti-spasticity medications (e.g., baclofen) had surprisingly larger windup of reflex responses than those who did not take such medications, although this difference may be related to differences of spasm frequency between the groups of subjects. The results indicate that the increase in spinal neuronal excitability following a train of electrical stimuli lasts for ≤3 s, similar to previous studies of nociceptive processing. Such longlasting increases in flexion reflex responses suggest that cellular mechanisms such as plateau potentials in spinal motoneurons, interneurons, or both, may partially mediate spinal cord hyperexcitability in the absence of descending modulatory input.
AB - The physiological basis of flexion spasms in individuals after spinal cord injury (SCI) may involve alterations in the properties of spinal neurons in the flexion reflex pathways. We hypothesize that these changes would be manifested as progressive increases in reflex response with repetitive stimulus application (i.e., "windup") of the flexion reflexes. We investigated the windup of flexion reflex responses in 12 individuals with complete chronic SCI. Flexion reflexes were triggered using trains of electrical stimulation of plantar skin at variable intensities and inter-stimulus intervals. For threshold and suprathreshold stimulation, windup of both peak ankle and hip flexion torques and of integrated tibialis anterior electromyographic activity was observed consistently in all patients at inter-stimulus intervals ≤3 s. For subthreshold stimuli, facilitation of reflexes occurred only at intervals ≤1 s. Similarly, the latency of flexion reflexes decreased significantly at intervals ≤1 s. Patients that were receiving anti-spasticity medications (e.g., baclofen) had surprisingly larger windup of reflex responses than those who did not take such medications, although this difference may be related to differences of spasm frequency between the groups of subjects. The results indicate that the increase in spinal neuronal excitability following a train of electrical stimuli lasts for ≤3 s, similar to previous studies of nociceptive processing. Such longlasting increases in flexion reflex responses suggest that cellular mechanisms such as plateau potentials in spinal motoneurons, interneurons, or both, may partially mediate spinal cord hyperexcitability in the absence of descending modulatory input.
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U2 - 10.1152/jn.00979.2001
DO - 10.1152/jn.00979.2001
M3 - Article
C2 - 12522190
AN - SCOPUS:0037250630
VL - 89
SP - 416
EP - 426
JO - Journal of Neurophysiology
JF - Journal of Neurophysiology
SN - 0022-3077
IS - 1
ER -