Reorganization of spinal neural circuitry and functional recovery after spinal cord injury

The ability of the adult central nervous system to reorganize its circuits over time is the key to understand the functional improvement in subjects with spinal cord injury(SCI).Adaptive changes within spared neuronal circuits may occur at cortical,brainstem,or spinal cord level,both above and below a spinal lesion(Bareyre et al.,2004).At each level the reorganization is a very dynamic process,and its degree is highly variable,depending on several factors,including the age of the