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Comment
. 2021 Aug 10:10:e72048.
doi: 10.7554/eLife.72048.

A major new dimension in the problem of brain injury

Jonathan R Wolpaw  1 , Jonathan S Carp  1   2
Affiliations
Comment

A major new dimension in the problem of brain injury

Jonathan R Wolpaw et al. Elife. .

Abstract

Evidence that neurohormones contribute to the contralateral effects of unilateral brain injury challenges a fundamental assumption of basic neuroscience and clinical neurology.

Keywords: brain injury; left-right side; neuroendocrine signaling; neurohormones; neuroscience; nociceptive withdrawal reflex; postural asymmetry; rat.

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Conflict of interest statement

JW, JC No competing interests declared

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. The effects of brain injury on contralateral motor function.
Injury to one side of the brain (yellow lightning bolt) impairs motor function on the opposite side of the body, causing the abnormal flexed posture of the opposite hind leg (yellow). It now appears that two vastly different mechanisms can produce this effect. In the classical mechanism known for centuries (left panel), brain injury impairs the activity in neural pathways that cross to the other side of the spinal cord and synapse on spinal neurons controlling the opposite hind leg, thereby causing the abnormal hind-leg posture. In the new mechanism revealed by Lukoyanov et al. (right panel), brain injury stimulates the pituitary gland to secrete a side-specific neurohormone (red or blue icon) into the bloodstream (grey loop) that binds to receptors concentrated in spinal neurons on the opposite side, thereby also causing the abnormal hind-leg posture.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment on

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