Dr peek, Wow, what a story. Sorry for your reason for coming to NT but welcome.

It sounds like you had a very focused injury. Since your memory, cognitive and emotional functions are not damaged but your motor functions are severely damaged, your information processing was spared. Be very thankful. I have many times thought about what I would give up to get my cognitive and memory functions back.

I think I would trade them for a wheel chair. I have a friend who is wheel chair bound from a low lumbar break. She has all of her cognitive, memory and emotional functions. The way she can attack life makes me sort of envious. Nothing stops her. She does not even use an electric chair.

Yes, be very thankful you have your cognitive, memory and emotional functions.

I understand that your motor functions are seriously impaired. I am not making light of that. You have my sympathies.

Regarding plasticity. Many people over-rate neuro-plasticity. It has many limits. The young have a greater ability to rewire their brains that those over 20 to 25 years old. There are over 5000 different classes of neuronal cells. They can attempt to reconnect but do not have much ability to replicate. The stem cell research has shown that the successful stem cell therapies will start with common cells like nerve fibers that transmit nerve signals with those that process signals in the brain a long way off.

Even when nerve cells reconnect, the process is very slow. The axons and dendrites connect using a happenstance system. As an axon grows and comes across a dendrite, it will try to connect to that dendrite. The dendrite will either accept or refuse the connection based on cellular coding. If the connection is refused, the axon will retract and try a different dendrite. One Neuron can have up to 10,000 axons. The complexity of this happenstance binary reconnect system takes a long time.

Those of us with diffuse axonal injuries from concussions, multiple concussions or multiple sub-concussive impacts have millions of these weak connections that get shut down to prevent bad information transmission. This can leave us with weaknesses throughout the brain.

I would wonder if you brain regions have even lost position relative to the other regions they were formerly connected to. This would make reconnections very problematic. Sort of a ' can't get there from here' scenario.

Some brain cells have a sort of linear connection. The sensory processing cells are connected in such a way that if vision cells are not receiving vision input, they relax and get taken over by auditory and tactile inputs and the latter sensory systems gain increased processing power. This is how a blind person can have such highly developed auditory, olfactory and tactile senses. This reassignment can take place within 12 hours of the relaxation event.

Well, enough for now. My brain is getting foggy. When this happens, I tend to find myself rereading the same line over and over again.

My best to you.