Université de Fribourg

Progressive plastic changes in the hand representation of the primary motor cortex parallel incomplete recovery from a unilateral section of the corticospinal tract at cervical level in monkeys

Schmidlin, Eric ; Wannier, Thierry ; Bloch, Jocelyne ; Rouiller, Eric M.

In: Brain Research, 2004, vol. 1017, p. 172-182

After a sub-total hemisection of the cervical cord at level C7/C8 in monkeys, a paralysis of the homolateral hand is rapidly followed by an incomplete recovery of manual dexterity, reaching a plateau after about 40–50 days, whose extent appears related to the size of the lesion. During a few days after the lesion, the hand representation in the contralateral motor cortex disappeared, replaced...