Brain plasticity

[mrhodes40]

Yes we can rewire for sure exercise is the key

This guy Rummerfield was in a car wreck at 17 and broke his neck. he was paralyzed but had I think 15% of the nerves still there.

He ran an Iron man 17 years later. Apparently he still as bladder issues and a few other things, but he gets around great
see story
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 02675.html

I subscribe to the Post, so you might have to register if you do not but its worth it.

What this says to me is that if we can get the MS process stopped far more recovery than we t hink will likely be there. I rewatch that video any time I get lazy about exercising for a few weeks. =

[jimmylegs]

the book "black patent shose, dancing with ms" is another story that involves retraining the body after a bout of debilitating neurological illness. it is written by a patient local to my area, same hospital, i think i put the details in the books section a while back.

[chrishasms]

So plasticity applies even if it is in the spine?

[Lyon]

.

[jimmylegs]

i personally would say my spine is much improved, and i have pictures

Activity-dependent plasticity occurs in the spinal cord throughout life. Driven by input from the periphery and the brain, this plasticity plays an important role in the acquisition and maintenance of motor skills and in the effects of spinal cord injury and other central nervous system disorders. The responses of the isolated spinal cord to sensory input display sensitization, long-term potentiation, and related phenomena that contribute to chronic pain syndromes; they can also be modified by both classical and operant conditioning protocols. In animals with transected spinal cords and in humans with spinal cord injuries, treadmill training gradually modifies the spinal cord so as to improve performance. These adaptations by the isolated spinal cord are specific to the training regimen and underlie new approaches to restoring function after spinal cord injury.

[carolew]

I truly believe that pushing our limits and exercise are big keys to keeping ourselves functional... we must never stop fighting...
That video is a great inspiration.. I am going downstairs right now to cycle a bit... later, Carole

[jimmylegs]

spine repair
left side is my dx mri. pretty dark but you can still see the mushy disaster my cord was in 06
right side is a followup mri that i requested at a followup appt with my neuro. you can see the cord is still far from perfect but it's a lot more together in 2007. and i was definitely waaay more functional
hopefully it looks even better these days, i certainly feel way better than the end of 2007

[jimmylegs]

bummer i don't know why it's so small
when i paste in the url that's to a larger file the [img] tags don't work
the actual image is bigger, it's weird
here's the link to a bigger image
http://tinyurl.com/bajckg

[patientx]

JL,

You must be really good at reading MRI films. I can't tell the difference, or what's abnormal in either one.

[jimmylegs]

well i'm no MRI tech but...

on the left one, the dx image, you can start at the top of the vertebrae to the left of the cord, and count down the first six dark disks.

the cord damage is to the right of that section of the spine, the top end pretty much lined up with the first disk, and the bottom end with the 6th disk.

in the dx mri the cord is looking sort of like corduroy roadkill, kind of spread out and taking up a good chunk of space in the "thecal sac" around the cord.

on the followup mri the thecal sac is looking more distinct from the cord. the sac is that white outline around the dark cord. you can see the cord itself is still not great but does look a bit less like corduroy, and the thecal sac seems to be doing a slightly better job of separating my bulging cervical disks from the cord.

when the first mri was done my l'hermittes sign was clear and present - by the second mri i didn't really get it any more. these days the most i notice that i might characterize as l'hermitte's, is sometimes there might be a bit of skin tingling. if it happens, it's usually associated with stamping around on pavement too much.

[jimmylegs]

i'm just that much of a nerd, i bought the cd of all my mri images from both dates, plus i have copies of the technician reports so i went through the report jargon looking up what they meant by everything

[patientx]

In keeping with the topic of this thread:

http://www.neurologyreviews.com/sep04/s ... S.html[url]

The doctor mentioned in the article, Dr. Shin, is at the MS center I go to. I don't know how old this article is, but maybe I can ask him about the subject next time I'm there.


JL,

Thanks for the explanation.

[Lyon]

.

[CureOrBust]

in the dx mri the cord is looking sort of like corduroy roadkill, kind of spread out and taking up a good chunk of space in the "thecal sac" around the cord.

on the followup mri the thecal sac is looking more distinct from the cord.

Ha, and you call yourself a nerd. I got your spine and adjusted the two image halves to have similar brightness / contrast. I didn't go too far, as you start to degrade the image more and more.

One thing I noticed was that the two halves appear to be different cross-sectional points, because the amount of what I am guessing are you ribs on the right hand side of the spinal cord, are different between your two images. I don't think too much can be scientifically read from an image comparison, based on these two images, because it would then also be fair to say that you have had some MAJOR bone development as well!

[jimmylegs]

hahaha! you saw my nerd and raised me a geek
you're right the slices are not in exactly the same place on me, but there are only three slices that show the cord at all, and you're seeing the middle one. on the images to either side, you can tell you're only getting a thin edge of one side of the cord and not a true cross section.