Figure 3 .

Acute C2 spinal cord hemisection resulted in a significant reduction in the amount of inspiratory related intercostal muscle activity (IM) ipsilateral to the SCI as measured by the peak amplitude of the integrated EMG activity expressed as a percentage of the non-injured side (set at 100%). EMG activity was measured at each intercostal space between the first and the tenth space on the ventral thoracic surface. Spontaneous recovery of intercostal activity increased starting at 1 week following SCI and activity significantly increased compared to acute SCI rats (*P < 0.05). After 16 weeks post-SCI, all intercostal muscles showed some spontaneous recovery of intercostal activity and this activity was significantly greater than acute SCI rats (*P < 0.05). Many were significantly increased compared to 1 week (^#P < 0.05). The spontaneous recovery of the hemidiaphragm ipsilateral to the hemisection is also expressed by 16 weeks after SCI.