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Published on: January 10, 2013
Inducing peripheral sympathetic nerve activity by therapeutic electrical stimulation
1Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan.
Purpose:
To examine whether the activity of peripheral sympathetic nerves in animals with spinal cord injury can be controlled using therapeutic electrical stimulation.
Methods:
The spinal cords of 6 Wistar rats were severed at T12/T13 disk level and were given continuous therapeutic electrical stimulation. Microneurography was used to record sympathetic nerve activity at 24, 48, and 72 hours after severing the spinal cord.
Results:
Integrated values of muscle sympathetic nerve activity after 72 hours of therapeutic electrical stimulation revealed significantly larger potentials on the stimulated side than the non-stimulated side. Skin sympathetic nerve activity showed no difference between the 2 sides.
Conclusion:
Therapeutic electrical stimulation was found to have a facilitatory effect on the muscle sympathetic nerve activity, whereas regulatory function was activated by the sympathetic nerves.
