Spinal cord neurophysiology

Abstract

Neurophysiological techniques and their clinical value in a spinal cord injury (SCI) specific context are discussed in this chapter. Since spontaneous neurological recovery is much better in clinical incomplete compared to complete cases, the rational for a detailed analysis of motor and sensory pathways after SCI is based on the intention to find markers of lesional incompleteness. For this reason, neurophysiological techniques are applied to investigate parameters of connectivity (e.g., somatosensory evoked potentials (SSEPs), motor evoked potentials (MEPs)) and the impact of that connectivity (e.g., reflex studies, patterns of muscle activation in polyelectromyography).