Relationship Between Spinal Reflexes and Spastic Movement Disorders

The central nervous system (CNS) generates various motor functions, in part by modulating the excitability of spinal reflex pathways. When a reflex becomes not modulable or its modulation becomes impaired due to spinal cord lesions or other CNS diseases, it could become a part of spastic movement disorders. For the CNS with or without chronic lesions, thus, reflexes can be used as tools to probe its state. Utilizing such features of spinal reflexes, it is possible to operantly condition a reflex to improve CNS activity and resulting motor function in spastic individuals with spinal cord lesions.