Fig. 1: Daily EF treatment improves hind limb motor function and touch sensitivity after SCI.

a Bioelectronic implant with stimulation electrodes. b Implant was inserted below T10–T12 in treated, non-treated, and no-injury rats. c A 175 kilodyne spinal cord impact at T11 showed no difference between groups. d Starting the day after surgery, treated rats received 2 Hz biphasic EF stimulation (1 h/day) via active and counter electrodes flanking the injury. e Treated rats initially recovered slower but surpassed non-treated rats in open-field motor scores from week 4 onward (green asterisks). f Treated rats showed faster hind paw withdrawal to ramping filament force at week 1 and weeks 3–12 compared to non-treated rats (green asterisks) and at week 4 and 9 compared to no-injury rats (blue asterisks). g Treated and non-treated rats showed similar foot misplacements on a 1-m ladder. h Treated rats had more slips on the ladder at weeks 3, 4, and 9 compared to non-treated (green asterisks). *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001, ****P < 0.0001. Group means are shown by thick lines ± SEM; thin lines represent individual animals from treated and non-treated groups in (e, g, h). c, e Treated n = 8, Non-treated n = 10, No injury n = 10; f–h Treated n = 8, Non-treated n = 8, No injury n = 10. c Two-way unpaired t-test, p = 0.94. e–h Two-way repeated measures ANOVA - Tukey’s post hoc; e post hoc treated vs non-treated effects: w1: p = 0.026, w4: p = 0.039, w5: p = 0.014, w6: p = 0.003, w7: p = 0.0002, w8: p < 0.0001, w9: p = 0.0013, w10: p = 0.0007, w11: p = 0.010, w12: p = 0.0002; f post hoc treated vs non-treated effects: w1: p = 0.047, w3: p = 0.027, w4: p = 0.0023, w5: p = 0.0066, w6: p = 0.0061, w7: p = 0.016, w8: p = 0.0092, w9: p = 0.0016, w10: p = 0.0063, w11: p = 0.017, w12: p = 0.0008, post hoc treated vs no injury effects: w4: p = 0.02, w9: p = 0.037; g post hoc treated vs non-treated effects: p’s > 0.17; h post hoc treated vs non-treated effects: w3: p = 0.011, w4: p = 0.011, w9: p = 0.017.