Reorganisation of spinal cord sensory map after peripheral nerve injury [17]

IT has generally been assumed that the connections of spinal cord cells are laid down during development and then remain stable throughout adult life. However, it has been shown that dorsal horn cells can be excited in a novel fashion by afferents over distant intact dorsal roots if section of nearby dorsal roots results in the degeneration of the afferent sensory fibres which normally activate the cells¹. Here we show that this plasticity of afferent connection can be provoked by section of peripheral nerves where there is no gross anatomical change of the central terminals of the sectioned fibres and yet the cells on which the cut nerves end begin to respond to the nearest intact nerves.