An electrophysiological study of the functional changes in the spinal motoneurones of hemiparetic patients
Sica, R.E.; Sanz, O.P.
Electromyography and Clinical Neurophysiology 16(5): 419-431
1976
ISSN/ISBN: 0301-150X PMID: 1009885 Document Number: 99251
Patients hemiparetic after a cerebro-vascular lesion were subjected to an electrophysiological investigation. The numbers of functioning motor units in the thenar, hypothenar, soleus and extensor digitorum brevis muscles were reduced shortly after the beginning of the illness but tended to improve thereafter. Meanwhile the sizes of the surviving units showed an initial increase of their territories which tended to become smaller in a 2nd period. The findings are explained on the basis of trans-synaptic changes in .alpha.-motoneurons after degeneration of corticospinal fibers and the eventual reinnervation of those neurons by axonal sprouting which enabled them to recapture muscle fibers.