High-density spinal cord stimulation selectively activates lower urinary tract afferents

Abstract

Epidural spinal cord stimulation (SCS) has recently been reported as a potential intervention to improve limb and autonomic functions, with lumbar stimulation improving locomotion and thoracic stimulation regulating blood pressure. We asked whether sacral SCS could be used to target the lower urinary tract. Here we show that high-density epidural SCS over the sacral spinal cord and cauda equina of anesthetized cats evokes responses in nerves innervating the bladder and urethra and that these nerves can be activated selectively. Sacral epidural SCS always recruited the pelvic and pudendal nerves and selectively recruited these nerves in all but one animal. Individual branches of the pudendal nerve were always recruited as well. Electrodes that selectively recruited specific peripheral nerves were spatially clustered on the arrays, suggesting anatomically organized sensory pathways. This selective recruitment demonstrates a mechanism to directly modulate bladder and urethral function through known reflex pathways, which could be used to restore bladder and urethral function after injury or disease.