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Posted on Tuesday February 12th, 2019
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R & D
Your spine is "smarter" than we thought
Research shows that our spinal cord contributes to sophisticated manual function
We often think that our brain is at the center of complex motor function and complex control, but what is the intelligence of your spine?
It turns out that it's smarter than we think.
It is well known that the circuits of this part of our nervous system, which run the length of our spine, control seemingly simple things like the reflex of pain in humans and certain motor control functions in animals.
New research from Western University shows that the spinal cord is also able to process and control more complex functions, such as positioning your hand in an outdoor space.
"This research has shown that at least one important function is fulfilled at the level of the spinal cord and opens up a whole new area of investigation:" What more is being done at the level of the spine and what have we potentially missed? Andrew Pruszynski, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Western Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry and Canada Research Chair in Sensorimotor Neuroscience.
The study "Spinal stretch reflexes promote effective manual control" was published online in the high-impact journal Nature Neuroscience. (Https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-019-0336-0)
This type of manual control requires sensory inputs from multiple joints – mainly the elbow and wrist – and it was previously thought that these inputs were processed and converted into motor commands by the cerebral cortex of the brain.
Using specialized robotic technology, an exoskeleton with three degrees of freedom at Western's Brain and Mind Institute, subjects were asked to hold their hand in the desired position, then the robot moved away from the target by flexing or extending the wrist and elbow simultaneously. The researchers measured the time required for the elbow and wrist muscles to respond to the robot's bump and whether these responses would bring the hand back to the original target.
By measuring the latency or "delay" of the response, they were able to determine if the treatment was taking place in the brain or spinal cord. "We found that these responses were occurring so quickly that the only place they could be generated was the spinal circuits themselves," said lead researcher Jeff Weiler, PhD, Schulich Medicine & Postdoctoral Fellow. Dentistry. "What we're seeing is that these spinal circuits do not really care about what's happening at the joints, they care about where the hand is in the outside world and generate an answer that's trying to deliver the hand at its origin. "
This response generated by the spinal cord is called "stretching reflex" and has already been considered very limited in terms of movement aid. "Historically, it was thought that these vertebral reflexes were simply acting to restore muscle length to what had happened before stretching," Pruszynski said. "We show that they can actually do something much more complicated: control the hand in the space."
This discovery adds immensely to our understanding of neuroscience and neurocircuits, and provides new information and targets for the science of rehabilitation.
"A fundamental understanding of neural circuits is essential for any advancement in rehabilitation," said Pruszynski, a research scientist at Robarts' Western Research Institute and the Brain and Mind Institute. "Here we can see how this knowledge could lead to different types of training schemes focused on the circuits of the spine."
Watch the video of the researchers explaining their work
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