@article {3383,
	title = {Persistent beneficial impact of H-reflex conditioning in spinal cord-injured rats.},
	journal = {J Neurophysiol},
	volume = {112},
	year = {2014},
	month = {11/2014},
	pages = {2374-81},
	abstract = {<p>Operant conditioning of a spinal cord reflex can improve locomotion in rats and humans with incomplete spinal cord injury. This study examined the persistence of its beneficial effects. In rats in which a right lateral column contusion injury had produced asymmetric locomotion, up-conditioning of the right soleus H-reflex eliminated the asymmetry while down-conditioning had no effect. After the 50-day conditioning period ended, the H-reflex was monitored for 100 [{\textpm}9 (SD)] (range 79-108) more days and locomotion was then reevaluated. After conditioning ended in up-conditioned rats, the H-reflex continued to increase, and locomotion continued to improve. In down-conditioned rats, the H-reflex decrease gradually disappeared after conditioning ended, and locomotion at the end of data collection remained as impaired as it had been before and immediately after down-conditioning. The persistence (and further progression) of H-reflex increase but not H-reflex decrease in these spinal cord-injured rats is consistent with the fact that up-conditioning improved their locomotion while down-conditioning did not. That is, even after up-conditioning ended, the up-conditioned H-reflex pathway remained adaptive because it improved locomotion. The persistence and further enhancement of the locomotor improvement indicates that spinal reflex conditioning protocols might supplement current therapies and enhance neurorehabilitation. They may be especially useful when significant spinal cord regeneration becomes possible and precise methods for retraining the regenerated spinal cord are needed.</p>},
	keywords = {H-reflex conditioning, Learning, Locomotion, Memory, Motor control, Rehabilitation, spinal cord injury, spinal cord plasticity},
	issn = {1522-1598},
	doi = {10.1152/jn.00422.2014},
	url = {http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25143542},
	author = {Yi Chen and Lu Chen and Wang, Yu and Jonathan Wolpaw and Xiang Yang Chen}
}
@article {3110,
	title = {H-reflex down-conditioning greatly increases the number of identifiable GABAergic interneurons in rat ventral horn.},
	journal = {Neuroscience letters},
	volume = {452},
	year = {2009},
	month = {03/2009},
	pages = {124{\textendash}129},
	abstract = {H-reflex down-conditioning increases GABAergic terminals on spinal cord motoneurons. To explore the origins of these terminals, we studied the numbers and distributions of spinal cord GABAergic interneurons. The number of identifiable GABAergic interneurons in the ventral horn was 78\% greater in rats in which down-conditioning was successful than in naive rats or rats in which down-conditioning failed. No increase occurred in other spinal lamina or on the contralateral side. This finding supports the hypothesis that the corticospinal tract influence that induces the motoneuron plasticity underlying down-conditioning reaches the motoneuron through GABAergic interneurons in the ventral horn.},
	keywords = {activity-dependent plasticity, GABAergic interneurons, H-reflex conditioning, learning and memory, Motor control, Spinal Cord},
	issn = {0304-3940},
	doi = {10.1016/j.neulet.2009.01.054},
	url = {http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19383426},
	author = {Wang, Yu and Pillai, Shreejith and Jonathan Wolpaw and Xiang Yang Chen}
}
