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Letter

Nature Medicine 14, 69–74 (1 January 2008) | doi:10.1038/nm1682

Recovery of supraspinal control of stepping via indirect propriospinal relay connections after spinal cord injury

Gregoire Courtine , Bingbing Song , Roland R Roy , Hui Zhong , Julia E Herrmann , Yan Ao , Jingwei Qi , V Reggie Edgerton & Michael V Sofroniew

Spinal cord injuries (SCIs) in humans and experimental animals are often associated with varying degrees of spontaneous functional recovery during the first months after injury. Such recovery is widely attributed to axons spared from injury that descend from the brain and bypass incomplete lesions, but its mechanisms are uncertain.