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Epidural stimulation restores motor control in animal models and humans after spinal cord injury (SCI) with the most notable example being locomotion; however, it has not yet been clinically translated to breathing. Further, neuroplasticity elicited by epidural stimulation is largely unexplored. We showed in a rat C 2 hemisection (C 2 HS) model of SCI that one bout of closed-loop epidural stimulation (CLES) restores some ipsilesional (ipsi) diaphragm EMG acutely post paralysis, and that in some rats, activity briefly lasts post CLES (15 minute recovery period to stabilize and confirm hemidiaphragm paralysis. Rats were delivered two 20 min. Finally, across all CLES bouts, the magnitude of ipsi activity in the 30 seconds post CLES was correlated with the magnitude of response during CLES (r 2 0.34, p = 0.05) indicating conditions that increase response may be best for neuroplasticity. Work is ongoing to clarify the roles of multiple bouts, cervical afferents, challenge, and time post injury in eliciting the enduring activity seen in some rats, but this work represents the first evidence that CLES can elicit respiratory neuroplasticity on a timescale and magnitude which may be relevant for functional benefit. T32HL134621 (AM), R01HL153102 (ED), SPARC OT2OD023854 (ED), Craig H. Neilsen Pilot Grant (ED). This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2024 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.
Mickle et al. (Wed,) studied this question.