George Smith
Temple University, PA·Neuroscience
After a spinal cord injury in the neck, people lose much of their arm and hand function. Rehabilitation is the best treatment for recovering it, but how the brain's motor signals reach the limbs during recovery is not well understood.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Physiology
Biomedical Engineering
- Topics
spinal cord injury
corticospinal tract
axons
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Mar 2028
What they work on
- Test whether a human CD59–Thy1.1 GPI-anchor chimera, activated by the bacterial toxin intermedilysin, selectively cuts corticospinal tract axons while sparing neighboring neurons and pathways, using histology of immune response, gliosis and myelination.
- Genetically lesion corticospinal tract axons in the cerebral peduncles, rostral pyramids or cervical spinal cord of rats to map how each region contributes to skilled forelimb use.
- Prune corticospinal terminals within specific brainstem motor nuclei and test whether this alters skilled forelimb recovery in rats rehabilitated after spinal cord injury.
More about the research
The corticospinal tract (CST) is the main pathway from the brain's cortex to the spinal cord. It sends many branches into the brainstem and into spinal motor regions. Whether other motor pathways need input from these CST branches to support recovery has been assumed but never directly shown. This project develops a genetic tool that can cut only chosen axons (nerve fibers), or just their end terminals, so that question can be tested.
Why it matters
People with cervical spinal cord injury lose forelimb function, and rehabilitation is the best current treatment. A tool that can remove specific nerve fibers while sparing nearby neurons could help researchers learn which brain-to-brainstem connections drive recovery. That knowledge could eventually guide rehabilitation strategies. The method could also be used broadly to study the role of axon branches in other motor and sensory circuits.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Elvira Pirondini
University of Pittsburgh, PA·Biomedical Engineering
Identify which nucleus of the motor thalamus, expected to be the ventral laterolateral (VLL) nucleus, most strongly boosts motor cortex responses and muscle responses, using paired stimulation in anesthetized monkeys.
Mark Goldberg
University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, TX·Neuroscience
Test whether REST, a protein that silences neural growth genes, limits motor recovery after stroke by selectively inactivating it in motor cortex neurons of transgenic mice using viral vectors.
Sabhya Rana
Ohio State University, OH·Neuroscience·Early-career
Develop an effective transcutaneous spinal direct current stimulation protocol that increases phrenic nerve activation after cervical spinal cord injury in rats, using controlled neurophysiological nerve recordings.
The school
Temple University: 22 labs on PI Pages, $315M a year on research, 238 research doctorates a year.
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