Somatosensory cortical atrophy after spinal cord injury: A voxel-based morphometry study

Abstract

The authors used voxel-based morphometry to compare sensorimotor cortical gray and white matter volume on structural MR images of a group of 17 individuals with cervical spinal cord injury (SCI) and a group of 17 healthy subjects. SCI subjects had reduced gray matter volume bilaterally in primary somatosensory cortex (p < 0.001). These findings suggest that the somatosensory cortex of the human brain atrophies after SCI.