Investigation of the pathophysiology of acute spinal cord injury dates from the experimental studies of Allen in the early 1900s. His method consisted of dropping graded weights onto the dura-covered thoracic cord of surgically prepared animals. The technique was refined over the years by precise measurements of the velocity, force, and direction of the dropped weights. This type of impact on the cord, of sufficient severity to render the animal immediately paraplegic and abolish sensory-evoked responses from structures below the lesion, indicates that action potentials can no longer be conducted across the injured spinal cord segment. No histologic changes, by either light or electron microscopy, can be detected for several minutes after impact. The earliest tissue alterations consist of hyperemia and small hemorrhages in the central gray matter. By 1 h, the microscopic hemorrhages coalesce and become macroscopically visible. Tissue oxygen saturation is diminished in the region. Within 4 h, the central part of the cord swells and a spreading edema pervades the surrounding white matter; however, necrosis may not be evident for up to 8 h, an observation that has led to numerous strategies designed to spare the neurons and long tracts. Surgical intervention to minimize white matter edema—such as laminectomy and myelotomy—spinal cord cooling, hyperbaric exposure, and the administration of pharmacologic measures have been tried but, for the most part, have had no meaningful effects on the evolving lesion.
Certain mechanisms that are thought to be operative in the death of cerebral neurons exposed to ischemia or to traumatic forces have also been invoked in spinal cord injury but with limited evidence to support this commonality. These include release of excitotoxins such as glutamate and exposure of neurons to calcium and free radicals. Despite early experiments implicating neurotransmitters or opioid-like substances, later work failed to substantiate this or other similar secondary mechanisms. One problem with all the experimental work is that it only imperfectly reproduces spinal injury in humans. Most recent work in the field of spinal cord injury has been on regeneration of spinal tissue across gaps in the cord using stem cells, gene therapy, and tissue scaffolding made of artificial or in vitro cell structures. None has yet proved satisfactory for clinical implementation.
Clinical Effects of Spinal Cord Injury
When the spinal cord is suddenly and severely impacted, three disorders of function are at once evident: (1) all voluntary movement in parts of the body below the lesion is immediately lost; (2) sensation from the lower parts of the body is abolished; and (3) reflex functions in segments of the isolated spinal cord are suspended. The last effect, termed spinal shock, involves tendon as well as autonomic reflexes. This state is of variable duration (1 to 6 weeks but sometimes far longer) and is so dramatic that Riddoch used it as a basis for dividing the clinical effects of spinal cord transection into two stages, that of spinal shock with areflexia followed by a stage of heightened reflex activity.
The separation of these stages is not as sharp as this statement might imply. Less complete or less sudden lesions of the cord result in little or no spinal shock. The features of complete functional spinal cord transection are now presented in detail because of their practical value and the special place they occupy in classic neurology.