Upper motor neuron lesions in stroke patients do not induce anterograde transneuronal degeneration in spinal anterior horn cells.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: To determine whether upper motor neuron lesions in stroke can cause transneuronal degeneration of lower motor neurons, we assessed spinal anterior horn cells in patients dying with poststroke hemiplegia.

METHODS

Subjects were four stroke patients with severe left hemiplegia and four age-matched control subjects who died of nonneurological disease. After histological processing and staining, cytoarchitectonic assessment was made of all neurons in the ventral horns of the 4th lumbar segment of the spinal cord according to cell diameter and topography.

RESULTS

In the four stroke patients, no differences were seen in anterior horn cell populations or diameter and size distribution patterns between affected and unaffected sides or between these patients and the control subjects.

CONCLUSIONS

The present quantitative analysis provides no evidence of anterograde transneuronal degeneration of lower motor neurons after upper motor neuron damage in stroke patients.