First-in-human study of epidural spinal cord stimulation in individuals with spinal muscular atrophy

Abstract

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is an inherited neurodegenerative disease causing motoneuron dysfunction, muscle weakness, fatigue and early mortality. Three new therapies can slow disease progression, enabling people to survive albeit with lingering motor impairments. Indeed, weakness and fatigue are still among patients’ main concerns. Here we show that epidural spinal cord stimulation (SCS) improved motoneuron function, thereby increasing strength, endurance and gait quality, in three adults with type 3 SMA. Preclinical works demonstrated that SMA motoneurons show low firing rates because of a loss of excitatory input from primary sensory afferents. In the present study, we hypothesized that correcting this loss with electrical stimulation of the sensory afferents could improve motoneuron function. To test this hypothesis, we implanted three adults with SMA with epidural electrodes over the lumbosacral spinal cord, targeting sensory axons of the legs. We delivered SCS for 4 weeks, 2 h per day during motor tasks. Our intervention led to improvements in strength (up to +180%), gait quality (mean step length: +40%) and endurance (mean change in 6-minute walk test: +26 m), paralleled by increased motoneuron firing rates. These changes persisted even when SCS was turned OFF. Notably, no adverse events related to the stimulation were reported. ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT05430113.