Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) has had success in pain management and promising results were demonstrated in other pathologies. To our knowledge, no preclinical studies of SCS in combination with brain fMRI exist, which limit exploration of novel SCS strategies. Here, we show our first results of simultaneous SCS and brain fMRI in rats aiming to establish a framework for future SCS developments. Stimulating spinal cord segment L2 induced a BOLD activation in the primary somatosensory/motor cortex and the thalamus that was dependent on the stimulation frequency. These results demonstrate that monitoring modulation of brain activity due to SCS is feasible.
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