FES and spontaneous regeneration

Electrical stimulation is being used as a therapeutic tool to promote recovery of function following nervous system injury and disease. Practical benefits from Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) in persons with spinal cord injury include an increase of the muscle mass, improvements in bone density, an enhanced cardiovascular function, improved bowel function and finally a decreased spasticity. However, FES has not been considered as a method for enhancing central nervous system regeneration. A group of scientists led by Prof. John W. McDonald, in the Department of Neurology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine found that FES could have a new unexpected activity: the enhancement of progenitor cell birth in injured spinal cords. The research team first implanted the functional electrical stimulation device in an experimental model of chronic spinal cord injury and an uninjured control group. Ten days after the FES implantation, dividing cells were marked and the groups subsequently compared. In the injured subgroup, FES induced an 82-86 % increase in cell birth in the lumbar spinal cord while FES had no effect in the uninjured subgroup. These results suggest that electrical activation of the central nervous system may enhance spontaneous regeneration after a spinal cord injury and could eventually increase the recovery of neurological function.

Original publication: Functional Electrical Stimulation Helps Replenish Progenitor Cells in the Injured Spinal Cord of Adult Rats. Becker D, Gary DS, Rosenzweig ES, Grill WM, McDonald JW. Exp Neurol. 2010 Jan 5.