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Biomedical subjects

J Faganel

Publications and source records attributed to J Faganel.

7 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1985

Detrusor areflexia in suprasacral spinal cord injuries.

Patients with high thoracic or cervical spinal cord injuries normally have a detrusor contraction during cystometry. Thirteen patients with detrusor areflexia and a high spinal cord lesion underwent neurophysiological evaluation with electromyography of the pelvic floor muscles, lumbosacral-evoked potential to tibial nerve stimulation, the bulbocavernosus reflex and water cystometry. Two groups of patients were identified. Of those patients with initial detrusor areflexia evidence was found for a subclinical second lesion involving the lumbosacral arc, which accounted for the acontractile bladder. In the remaining patients of this group, who had an intact sacral reflux arc, a detrusor contraction developed after a mean of 16.6 months from the date of injury. The second group of patients exhibited initial detrusor hyperreflexia that subsequently converted to areflexia. A reason was found for the alteration in bladder behavior in each case. The possible reasons for differential recovery of the somatic and autonomic nervous systems are discussed together with a rationale for the second subclinical spinal cord lesion. The most predictive neurophysiological test was electromyography of the pelvic floor.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1984

Suprasegmentally induced motor unit activity in paralyzed muscles of patients with established spinal cord injury.

In an attempt to demonstrate the presence of functional descending fibers in patients with clinically apparent functional spinal cord transection, we examined electromyographically recorded paralyzed leg muscle responses to the Jendrassik and other reinforcement maneuvers. Two patterns were observed: a low-amplitude, short onset time reinforcement maneuver response (RMR) restricted to one to three muscle groups (RMR1), and a larger-amplitude response with a longer onset time that occurred bilaterally in essentially all of the recorded muscles (RMR2). The responses imply preserved descending facilitory influence on isolated populations of motor units (RMR1) or on segmental interneuron pools (RMR2). Such findings indicate the presence of functioning fibers traversing the injured portion of the spinal cord in patients diagnosed as having a complete lesion. In such cases, it is possible for patients to initiate subclinical motor unit activity or suprasegmentally induced gross movement through reinforcement maneuvers, but not to control the amplitude or duration of the response.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1972

Habituation: effects of regular and stochastic stimulation.

The different effects of regular and stochastic stimulation on the flexor reflex of patients with the spinal cord totally divided and of normal subjects and on the blink reflex of normal subjects were studied.When the cutaneous stimulus was above but less than twice threshold, with regular stimulation habituation occurred; with stochastic stimulation, habitutaion either did not occur or it was minimal. Stochastic stimulation was at random stimulus intervals or with random stimulus intensities.When stimulus intensity was around threshold, habituation occurred with both kinds of stimulation, the response to stimulation soon ceasing to occur. When stimulus intensity was greater than twice threshold, habituation did not occur with both kinds of stimulation.When regular stimulation was given after the response had ceased to occur, extinction of the response beyond zero occurred.When a dishabituating stimulus was repeatedly applied in a regular manner, habituation to the dishabituating stimulus occurred.With regular and stochastic stimulation given as conditioning and test series, it was seen that stochastic stimulation caused, in addition to the short-term excitatory effect, the same long-term cumulative depressing effect on excitability as did regular stimulation.

Adult↗