Kessler Foundation researchers published new findings on neuromodulation in individuals with high-level spinal cord injury (SCI) using spinal cord transcutaneous stimulation (scTS). This promising approach to enhance cardiovascular regulation addresses the challenges of unstable blood pressure and the accompanying hypotensive and hypertensive events following SCI. The findings revealed that in individuals with low blood pressure following a SCI, scTS at the lumbosacral vertebrae region was able to significantly elevate blood pressure, unlike cervical or upper thoracic stimulation.
This trend , consistent across eight participants in the case series, highlights the potential for scTS to be used as a non-invasive therapeutic intervention to regulate cardiovascular function in SCI patients. The article, " Neuromodulation in Spinal Cord Injury Using Transcutaneous Spinal Stimulation—Mapping for a Blood Pressure Response: A Case Series ," was published on September 20, 2024, in Neurotrauma Reports . Kessler Foundation authors included Einat Engel-Haber, MD, Akhil Bheemreddy, Mehmed B.
Bayram, Ph.D., Manikandan Ravi, Fan Zhang, Ph.
D., Steven Kirshblum, MD, and Gail F. Forrest, Ph.
D., in addition to Haiyan Su, Ph.D.
, School of Computing, Montclair State University. While scTS may offer flexibility in stimulation locations, as opposed to epidural stimulation—another common method of spinal cord stimulation—it also leads to significant variability and lack of validation in stimu.
