Experimental study of motor and somatosensory evoked potentials on spinal cord injury / 中国矫形外科杂志

ABSTRACT

[Objective]To evaluate the validity and feasibility of somatosensory evoked potentials(SEP) and transcranial magnetic stimulation motor evoked potential(TMS-MEP) in early decompression of spinal cord injury(SCI). [Method]Thirty-two rabbits fell into four groups randomly. The static load model were used to simulate human SCI. According to the compression time, the animals were divided into 4 groups (control,5min, 15min,30min). In this study, somatosensory evoked potentials (SEP) and transcranial magnetic stimulation motor evoked potential (TMS-MEP) were used to assess neurologic function. The EPs were recorded at 5min, 15min, 30min, 60min, 6 hours, 24 hours, 3 days, 7 days post-decompression and before spinal cord injury in injury groups. Latency and amplitude were measured for each wave. Tarlov behaviour score was performed before surgery and after surgery at 1,3,7 days. Histologic studies were performed on part of animals. [Result]Spinal cord compression resulted in a gradual increment in the peak latency and significant decrement in the peak amplitude. After decompression, the recovery of the latency was more obvious than the amplitude in all injury groups, EPs recovered earlier than Tarlov score. [Conclusion]EPs may evaluate the neurologic function of SCI models sensitively and impartially. Dcompression early may promote SCI recovery.