抄録
Recent progress in the field of neurophysiology has revealed that locomotor-like electromyographic activity can be induced in paralyzed lower limb muscles in human by a particular mode of stimulation to peripheral receptors. This fact is supposed to be an indirect evidence for existence of the central pattern generator (CPG) in human spinal cord. On the basis of these neurophysiological background, a new type of locomotor training, such as the treadmill stepping with a partial body weight unloading, for spinal cord injured (SCI) patients has been developed, and certain benefit of such training to locomotor restoration has been reported. Together with animal studies, researchers in this field are now paying more attention on plasticity in spinal neural circuits. In this short review recent studies on the spinal CPG and plasticity in human spinal neural circuits are summarized and discussed with potential benefit of those new findings for locomotor restoration in SCI patients.
