The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of a rehabilitation exercise for people with incomplete Spinal Cord Injury (iSCI), based on cycling and combined afferent electrical stimulation (ES-cycling), to normalize spinal activity in response to a plantar cutaneous stimulation. We studied Soleus H-reflex excitability following ipsilateral plantar electrical stimulation applied at 25–100 ms inter-stimulus intervals (ISI’s), on 13 non-injured subjects and 10 subjects with iSCI. Reflexes were tested before and after a 10 min session of ES-cycling to evaluate the effects of the exercise. Plantar-conditioned H-reflex modulation increased in the iSCI group after ES-cycling, compared to the limited modulation observed before the exercise. Conversely, the non-injured group presented pronounced modulation both before and after the exercise. We conclude that ES-cycling improved plantar-conditioned spinal neuronal excitability in subjects with iSCI. Results could be used in the design of more effective leg-cycling therapies, to promote central neuroplasticity and rehabilitation in lower limb muscle activity following iSCI.
CITATION STYLE
Piazza, S., Serrano-Muñoz, D., Gómez-Soriano, J., Torricelli, D., Avila-Martin, G., Galan-Arriero, I., … Taylor, J. (2017). Cycling with plantar stimulation increases cutaneomuscular-conditioned spinal excitability in subjects with incomplete spinal cord injury. In Biosystems and Biorobotics (Vol. 15, pp. 33–37). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46669-9_7
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