Strengthening of corticospinal connection through recurrent neural interface

: Individuals with neural damage hope to regain their impaired functions. However, therapeutic rehabilitation is lacking. Nishimura et al. (2013) have documented that the strength of neural connections between the motor cortex and the spinal cord can be modified using an autonomous recurrent neural interface that delivers electrical stimuli in the spinal cord and this is triggered by action potentials of corticospinal cells during free behavior. This activity-dependent stimulation modifies the strength of the terminal connections of single corticomotoneuronal cells, which is consistent with the bidirectional spike-timing-dependent plasticity rule previously derived from in vitro experiments. The success of our protocol suggests neurorehabilitative treatments could be possible for patients with damaged pathways.