Fundamental study on plasticity of the human spinal cord for motor recovery in patients with spinal cord injury

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The purpose of this study was to investigate whether plasticity in the human spinal cord can be induced by non-invasive stimulation. Paired-associative stimulation(PAS) consisted of the electrical nerve stimulation to the posterior tibial never and the transcranial magnetic stimulation(TMS) over the primary motor cortex was applied with some interstimulus intervals(ISI) for fifteen minutes. It was shown that the size of motor evoked potentials by TMS in the soleus muscle changed depending on ISI. The present study showed possible existence of stimulation-induced short-term plasticity in the human spinal cord.