BRAIN IN SPINAL CORD INJURY
Changes
in brain activity depending on spinal cord injury have been studied by
researchers from the University of Technology, Department of Health Sciences,
Sidney, Australia, and their colleague from the Moorong Spinal Unit at the
Royal Rehabilitation Centre in the same city (Tran Y. et al., Levels of brain wave activity (8-13 Hz)
in persons with spinal cord injury, Spinal Cord, Volume 42, Number 2, Pages 73-79, February 2004).
Here
we report an abstract of the original work.
Study design: Brain wave activity in people with spinal cord injury (SCI)
was compared to brain wave activity in able-bodied controls. Objectives: To
investigate whether a spinal injury results in changes in levels of brain wave
activity in the 8-13 Hz spectrum of the electroencephalography (EEG). Setting:
Sydney, Australia.
Methods: Monopolar, multichannel EEG assessment was completed for 20
persons with SCI and 20 able-bodied, sex- and age-matched controls. A total of
14 channels of EEG were measured across the entire scalp for all participants.
Comparisons between the able-bodied and SCI participants were made across the
frontal, central, parietal, occipital and temporal regions. Comparisons were
also made for impairment level, that is, between participants with tetraplegia
and paraplegia.
Results: Compared to the able-bodied controls, consistently reduced
brain wave activity (measured by magnitude and peak amplitude) in the 8-13 Hz
component of the EEG occurred in persons with SCI across all regions and sites,
and differences were larger in the central, parietal and occipital sites. The
SCI group also had consistently lower frequencies than the able-bodied
controls. Furthermore, the subgroup of SCI participants with tetraplegia
generally had significantly reduced brain activity (magnitude and peak
amplitude) compared with the paraplegic subgroup and able-bodied controls.
Conclusions: The findings of this research enhance our understanding of changes in
brain wave activity that could be associated with deafferentation that occurs
following SCI, as well as provide essential data on the potential of SCI persons
to use a 'hands free' environmental control system that is based upon 8-13 Hz
brain activity.
BM&L-February
2004