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SPINAL CORD INJURY

Spinal stimulation and physical therapy helps paraplegic patients to walk again

Nature Reviews Neurology volume 14, page 631 (2018)Cite this article

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Overground walking can be restored in people with complete loss of motor function in the lower limbs, according to two new studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) and Nature Medicine. Epidural electrical stimulation of the spinal cord in combination with physical therapy enabled patients to sit, stand and walk.

“Our group set out to do a proof-of-principle study to show that after a motor complete SCI, the human spinal cord retains intact locomotor circuitry below the level of injury and that this circuitry can be accessed and retrained with the combination of locomotor training and epidural stimulation,” explains Claudia Angeli, first author on the NEJM study.

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  1. Nature Reviews Neurology http://www.nature.com/nrneurol/

    Charlotte Ridler

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  1. Charlotte Ridler
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Correspondence to Charlotte Ridler.

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Ridler, C. Spinal stimulation and physical therapy helps paraplegic patients to walk again. Nat Rev Neurol 14, 631 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41582-018-0092-x

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