Identification of Conduction Velocity of Bladder Afferent and Efferent Signals in the Sacral Roots of Sheep Using Cross-Correlation Methods.

Loss or impairment of bladder function is a common effect of Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) and can be detrimental to a patient's quality of life. Poor bladder management can cause Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs), which can, in some cases, lead to death. Therefore, bladder management is of primary importance for those living with SCI.This paper presents a method for extracting information about the bladder pressure from Electroneurogram (ENG) recordings from an ewe's extra-dural sacral roots (S1-S3) using a cross-correlation algorithm between adjacent channels of multichannel book electrodes. This enabled the measurement of afferent and efferent neural activity within specific velocity bands. Average afferent and efferent velocities identified were 13.51 ± 0.012 m/s and 10.87 0.009 m/s, respectively. This research has contributed to ±a better understanding of the physiology of the bladder during filling.