This may seem to be silly question but, until people get spinal cord
injury or know somebody who is, most pay little attention to their
spinal cords. Most people don’t know the different parts of the
spinal cord, what each part does, and how the spinal cord transmits
sensory and motor information. Many think that the spinal cord conducts
information like a telephone wire and the spinal cord can be fixed by
reconnecting it. Some people mistakenly believe that the spinal cord is
the vertebral column. While almost everybody knows that spinal cord
injury causes paralysis, many are not aware that the spinal cord also
controls the bladder and bowel, sexual function, blood pressure, skin
blood flow, sweating, and temperature regulation.
The effects of SCI depend on the type of
injury and the level of the injury. SCI can be divided into two types
of injury - complete and incomplete. A complete injury means that there
is no function below the level of the injury; no sensation and no
voluntary movement. Both sides of the body are equally affected. An
incomplete injury means that there is some functioning below the
primary level of the injury. A person with an incomplete injury may be
able to move one limb more than another, may be able to feel parts of
the body that cannot be moved, or may have more functioning on one side
of the body than the other. With the advances in acute treatment of
SCI, incomplete injuries are becoming more common.
Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) is damage to the spinal
cord that results in a loss of function such as mobility or feeling.
Frequent causes of damage are trauma (car accident, gunshot,
falls, etc.) or disease (polio, spina bifida, Friedreich's Ataxia,
etc.). The spinal cord does not have to be severed in order for a loss
of functioning to occur. In fact, in most people with SCI, the spinal
cord is intact, but the damage to it results in loss of functioning.
SCI is very different from back injuries such as ruptured disks, spinal
stenosis or pinched nerves.
The spinal cord is about 18 inches long and
extends from the base of the brain, down the middle of the back, to
about the waist. The nerves that lie within the spinal cord are upper
motor neurons (UMNs) and their function is to carry the messages back
and forth from the brain to the spinal nerves along the spinal tract.
The spinal nerves that branch out from the spinal cord to the other
parts of the body are called lower motor neurons (LMNs). These spinal
nerves exit and enter at each vertebral level and communicate with
specific areas of the body. The sensory portions of the LMN carry
messages about sensation from the skin and other body parts and organs
to the brain. The motor portions of the LMN send messages from the
brain to the various body parts to initiate actions such as muscle
movement.
Your Spinal Cord is important because without a spinal cord your brain and your body couldn't communicate with each other. The spinal cord is the pathway for impulses
from the body to the brain, and from the brain
to the body. These impulses are different signals our brain sends and receives from our bodies.