Transplantation of olfactory ensheathing cells into spinal cord lesions restores breathing and climbing

One of the most devastating effects of damage to the upper spinal cord is the loss of the ability to breathe; patients suffering these injuries can be kept alive only with assisted ventilation. No known method for repairing these injuries exists. We report here the return of supraspinal control of breathing and major improvements in climbing after the application of a novel endogenous matrix transfer method. This method permits efficient transfer and retention of cultured adult rat olfactory ensheathing cells when transplanted into large lesions that destroy all tracts on one side at the upper cervical level of the adult rat spinal cord. This demonstrates that transplantation can produce simultaneous repair of two independent spinal functions

A Preliminary Study on SVM based Analysis of Underwater Magnetic Signals for Port Protection

People who attend to the problem of underwater port protection usually use sonar based systems. Recently it has been shown that integrating a sonar system with an auxiliary array of magnetic sensors can improve the effectiveness of the intruder detection system. One of the major issues that arise from the integrated magnetic and acoustic system is the interpretation of the magnetic signals coming from the sensors. In this paper a machine learning approach is proposed for the detection of divers or, in general, of underwater magnetic sources. The research proposed here, by means of a windowing of the signals, uses Support Vector Machines for classification, as tool for the detection problem. Empirical results show the effectiveness of the method

Role of Muscle Synergies in Real-Time Classification of Upper Limb Motions using Extreme Learning Machines

10.1186/s12984-016-0183-0Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation13118

[Dudley Joy Morton's foot syndrome]

Morton's foot syndrome is a hereditary syndrome characterized by a short first metatarsal bone, posterior displacement of the sesamoids, and hypertrophy of the second metatarsal, causing excessive weight to be borne by the second metatarsal head. This condition results in callus formation under the second metatarsal. Pain and tenderness are usually felt at the base of the first two metatarsal bones and at the head of the second. Pain (metatarsalgia) may be disabling. Conservative treatment consists of placing a flexible pad under the first metatarsal and toe to increase the range of motion and weight-bearing along the first metatarsophalangeal joint and the hallux. Surgical treatment consists of removing a small portion of bone from one or two joints to bring the toe down to the desired length. Lengthening short toes by placing a silicon implant into one of the joints is also possible

Regeneration of acutely and chronically injured descending respiratory pathways within post-traumatic nerve grafts

International audienc

Bioenergetic characteristics of the diaphragm after spinal cord injury

INTRODUCTION: C2 spinal cord hemisection interrupts descending bulbospinal respiratory axons coursing through the cervical spinal cord. One consequence of this type of spinal cord injury is the partial deafferentation of the ipsilateral phrenic nucleus, which renders the hemidiaphragm paralysed. The biochemical properties of the intact or denervated locomotor skeletal muscles have been studied extensively, whereas the biochemical properties of the diaphragm after a cervical spinal cord injury received relatively little attention. This seems unfortunate, given that the diaphragm is the most important mammalian respiratory muscle and is the only skeletal muscle considered essential for survival. Therefore, the purpose of this work was to analyse the bioenergetic characteristics of the diaphragm following a cervical spinal cord injury. METHODS: Segments of the crural diaphragm from rat were homogenised to determine the activities of a glycolytic enzyme, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), and a Krebs cycle enzyme, citrate synthase (CS). RESULTS: Data show a significant decrease of the CS activity on the ipsilateral hemidiaphragm to the cervical hemisection. No change in the LDH is observed between the animal without or with a cervical spinal cord injury. CONCLUSIONS: These data suggested that the CS activity could be dependent of the nervous influx from the central respiratory rhythm generator and that LDH activity could be maintained by a peripheral respiratory activity or by the cross phrenic phenomenon activation. Biochemical data should be considered in subjects presenting respiratory deficiency induced by a cervical spinal cord injury. Furthermore, the diaphragmatic muscle metabolic activity could be used to evaluate the functional respiratory recovery observed spontaneously or experimentally after using repair strategies of the spinal cord

Bioenergetic characteristics of the diaphragm after spinal cord injury

INTRODUCTION: C2 spinal cord hemisection interrupts descending bulbospinal respiratory axons coursing through the cervical spinal cord. One consequence of this type of spinal cord injury is the partial deafferentation of the ipsilateral phrenic nucleus, which renders the hemidiaphragm paralysed. The biochemical properties of the intact or denervated locomotor skeletal muscles have been studied extensively, whereas the biochemical properties of the diaphragm after a cervical spinal cord injury received relatively little attention. This seems unfortunate, given that the diaphragm is the most important mammalian respiratory muscle and is the only skeletal muscle considered essential for survival. Therefore, the purpose of this work was to analyse the bioenergetic characteristics of the diaphragm following a cervical spinal cord injury. METHODS: Segments of the crural diaphragm from rat were homogenised to determine the activities of a glycolytic enzyme, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), and a Krebs cycle enzyme, citrate synthase (CS). RESULTS: Data show a significant decrease of the CS activity on the ipsilateral hemidiaphragm to the cervical hemisection. No change in the LDH is observed between the animal without or with a cervical spinal cord injury. CONCLUSIONS: These data suggested that the CS activity could be dependent of the nervous influx from the central respiratory rhythm generator and that LDH activity could be maintained by a peripheral respiratory activity or by the cross phrenic phenomenon activation. Biochemical data should be considered in subjects presenting respiratory deficiency induced by a cervical spinal cord injury. Furthermore, the diaphragmatic muscle metabolic activity could be used to evaluate the functional respiratory recovery observed spontaneously or experimentally after using repair strategies of the spinal cord

Efficient Approximate Regularized Least Squares by Toeplitz Matrix

Machine Learning based on the Regularized Least Squares (RLS) model requires one to solve a system of linear equations. Direct-solution methods exhibit predictable complexity and storage, but often prove impractical for large-scale problems; iterative methods attain approximate solutions at lower complexities, but heavily depend on learning parameters. The paper shows that applying the properties of Toeplitz matrixes to RLS yields two benefits: first, both the computational cost and the memory space required to train an RLS-based machine reduce dramatically; secondly, timing and storage requirements are defined analytically. The paper proves this result formally for the one-dimensional case, and gives an analytical criterion for an effective approximation in multidimensional domains. The approach validity is demonstrated in several real-world problems involving huge data sets with highly dimensional dat

[Metabolic stability and physiological adaptation of muscle under conditions of exercise]

The first role played by group III (thin myelinated) and group IV (unmyelinated) afferent fibres from skeletal muscle is to transmit nociceptive information from muscle to the central nervous system. The second role of these free endings located in the interstitium of the muscle is to induce cardiovascular and respiratory adjustments during muscular exercise. These respiratory and circulatory responses during muscular exercise may be reflexly induced via muscular afferents. Indeed, static contraction of hindlimb muscles in anaesthetised mammals has been shown to reflexly increase the ventilatory function, the myocardial contractility and heart rate. The mechanical muscle deformation and the accumulation of metabolites in its intersitium are the cause of raised activity in small nerve fibres which in turn induces the physiological responses. It is also admitted that the central locomotor areas on the medullary and spinal neuronal pools control ventilatory and cardiovascular function during exercise. This mechanism is called "central command". Furthermore, adjustments of the locomotor activity during exercise is mediated by the thinly myelinated and unmyelinated fibres with endings in the working muscle. These fibres, also called "metaboreceptor" may be responsible of the coupling between the ventilation and the locomotion. Thickly myelinated muscle afferents (i.e. group I and II) appear to play little role in causing the reflex autonomic responses to contraction