Recovery of locomotion after partial spinal cord lesions in cats: assessment using behavioral, electrophysiological and imaging techniques.

This paper aims at summarizing the recovery of locomotor function after a complete or a partial spinal lesion at the low thoracic level in cats. We have used electrophysiological, behavioral and imaging methods to document various aspects of this research. It is believed that a short descriptive summary of locomotor recovery after various types of lesions is needed to understand the evolution of our understanding of this recovery after complete and partial spinal cord lesions. This is by no means an exhaustive review of the subject but a canvass of the experiments as they evolved in our group (mainly) on this topic. We have kept the physiological evaluation as a whole and the MRI as a separate section to preserve the internal coherence of each approach but we refer reciprocally to each part as deemed important.