Slow-wave activity homeostasis in the somatosensory cortex after spinal cord injury.

Slow-wave activity homeostasis in the somatosensory cortex after spinal cord injury. Exp Neurol. 2019 Aug 22;:113035 Authors: Fernández-López E, Alonso-Calviño E, Humanes-Valera D, Foffani G, Aguilar J Abstract The cortical reorganization after spinal cord injury (SCI) involves a series of physiological changes that drive the expansion of the intact cortical area to the deafferented cortical area. These changes have always been studied under a stimulus-response paradigm, which demonstrates that the deafferented cortex becomes more responsive to stimulation of body regions above the level of the lesion. However, less is known about how permanent large-scale deafferentation affects spontaneous activity in the somatosensory cortex, an important physiological feature related to the processing of peripheral inputs and perception. Here we studied the spontaneous activity at two sites of the somatosensory cortex, corresponding to forepaw and hindpaw, and at three different time points after SCI: acute SCI, one week post-SCI and chronic SCI (1-3 months after injury). Electrophysiological recordings from anesthetized rats were obtained in conditions of slow-wave activity in order to compare features of the neural populations in periods of cortical up-states. Our data demonstrate that acute SCI reduces the excitability of cortical neurons during up-states in both the forepaw and the hindpaw cortex. One week after SCI, the properties of co...
Source: Experimental Neurology - Category: Neurology Authors: Tags: Exp Neurol Source Type: research