Assessment of Bilateral SSEP Signals Enhancement following Transectional Spinal Cord Injury Using Linear Modeling

Partial or complete loss of sensory and motor function between the brain and peripheral nerves is a likely consequence of spinal cord injury. However, it has been reported that a certain degree of plasticity in the central nervous system may result in functional recovery. Somatosensory evoked potentials (SSEP) have been used extensively in assessing the functional integrity of spinal cord pathways by examining the reduction or increase in signal amplitude and time latency. In this study, we use linear modeling coefficient values to quantify the degree of relationship between contralateral forelimb SSEPs recordings. Preliminary results demonstrate the effectiveness of this method in quantifying the level of similarity between SSEP signals obtained from different limbs.