Segmental motor recovery after cervical spinal cord injury relates to density and integrity of corticospinal tract projections

Gustavo Balbinot; Guijin Li; Sukhvinder Kalsi-Ryan; Rainer Abel; Doris Maier; Yorck-Bernhard Kalke; Norbert Weidner; Rüdiger Rupp; Martin Schubert; Armin Curt; Jose Zariffa

doi:10.1038/s41467-023-36390-7

Segmental motor recovery after cervical spinal cord injury relates to density and integrity of corticospinal tract projections

Nat Commun. 2023 Feb 9;14(1):723. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-36390-7.

Authors

Gustavo Balbinot^{1

2

3}, Guijin Li^{4

5}, Sukhvinder Kalsi-Ryan^{4

6

7}, Rainer Abel⁸, Doris Maier⁹, Yorck-Bernhard Kalke¹⁰, Norbert Weidner¹¹, Rüdiger Rupp¹¹, Martin Schubert¹², Armin Curt¹², Jose Zariffa^{13

14

15

16}

Affiliations

¹ KITE, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada. gustavo.balbinot@hotmail.com.
² Krembil Research Institute, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada. gustavo.balbinot@hotmail.com.
³ Center for Advancing Neurotechnological Innovation to Application - CRANIA, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada. gustavo.balbinot@hotmail.com.
⁴ KITE, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada.
⁵ Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
⁶ Rehabilitation Sciences Institute, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
⁷ Department of Physical Therapy, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
⁸ Hohe Warte Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany.
⁹ BG-Trauma Center, Murnau, Germany.
¹⁰ RKU Universitäts- und Rehabilitationskliniken Ulm, Ulm, Germany.
¹¹ Spinal Cord Injury Center, Heidelberg University Hospital, Heidelberg, Germany.
¹² Spinal Cord Injury Center, Balgrist University Hospital, Zurich, Switzerland.
¹³ KITE, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada. jose.zariffa@utoronto.ca.
¹⁴ Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada. jose.zariffa@utoronto.ca.
¹⁵ Rehabilitation Sciences Institute, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada. jose.zariffa@utoronto.ca.
¹⁶ Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada. jose.zariffa@utoronto.ca.

Abstract

Cervical spinal cord injury (SCI) causes extensive impairments for individuals which may include dextrous hand function. Although prior work has focused on the recovery at the person-level, the factors determining the recovery of individual muscles are poorly understood. Here, we investigate the muscle-specific recovery after cervical spinal cord injury in a retrospective analysis of 748 individuals from the European Multicenter Study about Spinal Cord Injury (NCT01571531). We show associations between corticospinal tract (CST) sparing and upper extremity recovery in SCI, which improves the prediction of hand muscle strength recovery. Our findings suggest that assessment strategies for muscle-specific motor recovery in acute spinal cord injury are improved by accounting for CST sparing, and complement person-level predictions.

Publication types

Multicenter Study
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Cervical Cord*
Humans
Muscle, Skeletal
Pyramidal Tracts
Recovery of Function / physiology
Retrospective Studies
Spinal Cord
Spinal Cord Injuries*