Human spinal networks

Human studies involving spinal cord injured individuals or persons with other neurologic disease or disorders were from early observations of these individuals and also designed from knowledge of spinal mechanisms from vertebrate and invertebrate experiments to understand whether mechanisms of central pattern generation remained conserved. We review evidence that through a combination of spinal neuromodulation and training, human neural networks functionally isolated from supraspinal influence can be reorganized, are highly plastic, dynamic, and activity dependent, and under the right conditions these properties can drive motor and autonomic recovery even years after injury. This evolves our understanding about how the human spinal cord functions, and even with loss of descending input what is possible for recovery after spinal cord injury and other neurologic disorders even years after injury or disease.