TITLE: A cost-effective and non-invasive method to visualize the electrical activity of the spinal cord
SUBTITLE: We developed a novel approach to obtain images of the neural activity of sensorimotor circuits in the spinal cord. This approach can facilitate cost-effective early diagnosis and patient stratification in dramatic clinical conditions such as chronic pain and spinal cord injury.
MAIN TEXT: Lesions of the spinal cord in humans are devastating and often lead to severe refractory forms of chronic pain. Furthermore, heightened sensitivity of spinal cord neurons, an abnormal condition known as central sensitization, plays a pivotal role in both the development and persistence of chronic pain. This intricate interplay between spinal cord damage and central sensitization underscores the urgent need for innovative approaches to map non-invasively the activity of somatosensory spinal neurons.
Indeed, only a comprehensive characterization of how information about bodily stimuli is encoded and transmitted at spinal cord level will allow subsequent identification and understanding of the abnormalities that bring about chronic pain.
FIRST HEADER WITHIN THE MAIN TEXT: A novel strategy to map spinal cord activity
MAIN TEXT FOLLOWING THE HEADER: Studying the electrical activity of the spinal cord is clearly important. However a number of hurdles, both technical and physiological, makes it difficult. These include the distance between surface electrodes and the cord and the resulting small amplitude of the electrical signals of neural origin, the comparatively massive electrical artifacts caused by the heartbeat and muscle contraction, the lack of a clear physiological understanding of whether and how synaptic activity in the cord translate in a difference of potential that can be measured non-invasively. It is for these reasons that the electrical activity occurring in somatosensory spinal circuits has never been reliably mapped non-invasively in humans.
This is exactly what the EU-funded SPINREC project has solved, by designing and implementing a novel and cost-effective approach to produce images that directly and quantitatively show the electrical activity of the spinal cord.
The SPINREC team has performed a painstaking work testing different types, numbers, and positions of surface electrodes, finding optimal referencing, and using cutting edgedata analysis approaches to isolate the electrical signals truly originating from spinal cord neurons. The final setup, capitalizing on the high sampling of 64 active electrodes, allows for an easy and cost-effecting visualization of the spatial dynamics of the electrical activity in somatosensory spinal circuits.
The team has been able to visualize for the first time images that distinctively reflect both neural activity consequent to synaptic activity within certain segments of the spinal cord and neural activity reflecting the traveling waves of action potentials along spinal pathways.
HEADER WITHIN THE MAIN TEXT: Future developments
MAIN TEXT FOLLOWING THE HEADER: SPINREC future activities will develop along two intertwined directions. On the physiological side the team will work to map electrical spinal activity during the execution of voluntary movements – a condition where the muscle activity creates prohibitive artifacts. On the technological side the team is developing a garment that makes the electrode setup and referencing easily applicable in clinical and laboratory settings, while maintaining a widespread coverage to achieve fine-grained images of electrospinal activity.
