Targeting Cervical Epidural Spinal Cord Stimulation for Functional Recovery

Details

For people with cervical spinal cord injury (SCI), regaining hand and arm function is their highest priority. Epidural stimulation enables recovery of walking and autonomic function in people with chronic SCI, but how the spinal cord should be stimulated to restore arm and hand function is not known. This project seeks to advance our understanding of how best to apply epidural electrical stimulation (EES) after cervical SCI using complementary experiments in humans and rats. This improved understanding will be used to conduct a preclinical study of the efficacy of different sites of cervical spinal cord stimulation.