Spinal intramedullary recording of human somatosensory evoked potentials

We here report the first description of the intramedullary spatial distribution of evoked dorsal horn potentials in a human spinal cord. Somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs) to median nerve stimulation were recorded within the cervical spinal cord of a patient with syringomyelia. Spinal intramedullary recording demonstrated a negative slow wave of the same polarity as the dorsal spinal surface response and a complex wave interpreted as the summation of its negativity and phase-reversed positivity. These two wave forms may depend on the locations at which the recording electrodes are attached to the dorsal horn.