Al-Nashash Hasan, Fatoo Noreen A, Mirza Nabil N, Ahmed Rabi I, Agrawal Gracee, Thakor Nitish V, All Angelo H
College of Engineering, American University of Sharjah, Sharjah, UAE.
IEEE Trans Biomed Eng. 2009 Aug;56(8):1971-9. doi: 10.1109/TBME.2009.2018296. Epub 2009 Apr 7.
In this paper, spectral coherence (SC) is used to study the somatosensory evoked potential (SEP) signals in rodent model before and after spinal cord injury (SCI). The SC technique is complemented with the Basso, Beattie, and Bresnahan (BBB) behavior analysis method to help us assess the status of the motor recovery. SC can be used to follow the effects of SCI without any preinjury baseline information. In this study, adult female Fischer rats received contusion injury at T8 level with varying impact heights using the standard New York University impactor. The results show that the average SC between forelimb and hindlimb SEP signals before injury was relatively high ( > or =0.7). Following injury, the SC between the forelimb and hindlimb SEP signals dropped to various levels ( < or =0.7) corresponding to the severity of SCI. The SC analysis gave normalized quantifiable results for the evaluation of SCI and recovery thereafter using the forelimb signals as an effective control, without the need of any baseline data. This technique solves the problems associated with the commonly used time-domain analysis like the need of a trained neurophysiologist to interpret the data and the need for baseline data. We believe that both SC and BBB may provide a comprehensive and complementary picture of the health status of the spinal cord after injury. The presented method is applicable to SCIs not affecting the forelimb SEP signals.
在本文中，频谱相干（SC）被用于研究脊髓损伤（SCI）前后啮齿动物模型中的体感诱发电位（SEP）信号。SC技术与巴索、比蒂和布雷斯纳汉（BBB）行为分析方法相辅相成，以帮助我们评估运动恢复状况。SC可用于追踪SCI的影响，而无需任何损伤前的基线信息。在本研究中，成年雌性Fischer大鼠使用标准的纽约大学撞击器在T8水平以不同的撞击高度接受挫伤损伤。结果表明，损伤前前肢和后肢SEP信号之间的平均SC相对较高（≥0.7）。损伤后，前肢和后肢SEP信号之间的SC下降到与SCI严重程度相对应的不同水平（≤0.7）。SC分析给出了标准化的可量化结果，用于以未受损伤的前肢信号作为有效对照来评估SCI及其后的恢复情况，而无需任何基线数据。该技术解决了与常用时域分析相关的问题，如需要训练有素的神经生理学家来解释数据以及需要基线数据的问题。我们认为，SC和BBB都可能为损伤后脊髓的健康状况提供全面且互补的情况。所提出的方法适用于不影响前肢SEP信号的SCI。
