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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2022 Apr 15.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Rev Neurol. 2020 Dec 11;17(1):53–62. doi: 10.1038/s41582-020-00436-x

Fig. 3 |. Reversible axonal injury and transient recovery.

Fig. 3 |

The underlying causes of dissociated longitudinal outcomes after spinal cord injury (SCI) include reversible (transient) axonal injury and transient recovery. Predicted functional recovery based on lesion size is indicated by the dotted line, whereas actual observed recovery is indicated by the solid line. a | The observed functional recovery can be greater than the predicted functional recovery. This mismatch (green) can be accounted for by the presence of reversible (transient) axonal injury that resolves during the early part of recovery14,15. b | Transient recovery can result in a mismatch (red) between the degree of recovery predicted from the initial lesion size and the final degree of recovery observed both after experimental SCI and human SCI48,54,55. This transient recovery can be caused by the delayed emergence of systemic disease modifiers48,54,55.