What if you could target brain regions important for recovery after spinal cord injury with DBS? Can you say hypothamamus? Guess what Cho and colleagues from Switzerland did just that in a brilliant new paper @NatureMedicine. Key Points: - People don't think about it, but guess what, spinal cord injury 'disrupts the neuronal projections from the brain to the region of the spinal cord that produces walking.' - The authors wanted to know what brain regions would steer recovery following spinal injury. - They cleverly made a space–time brain-wide atlas of 'transcriptionally active and spinal cord-projecting neurons.' - What region lit up? The lateral hypothalamus. - Specifically glutamatergic neurons. - They tested in mice and it helped. - They tested in two humans and it immediately improved walking. My take: WOW. A little serendipity in that no one expected that the lateral hypothalamus was important for mediating recovery of walking in incomplete spinal injury. We have been in the lateral hypothalamus for DBS in humans for obesity and other symptoms and, we will need in future experiments to monitor body weight, psychological status, hormonal profiles, and of course autonomic functions. What I love about this study was the path the scientists and clinicians from Lausanne took. A space–time brain-wide atlas, followed by mice, and then two actual humans. BRAVO! Excited to see what comes next. nature.com/articles/s41591-0… #deepbrainstimulation #neuromodulation