Alterations in Extracellular Vesicle Communication as a Cause of Neuromuscular Junction Dysfunction after Spinal Cord Injury

The major goal of this project is to test the hypothesis that a specific signal, small, non-coding RNAs called microRNAs, are secreted from muscle cells to motor neurons and regulate the local events within neuronal axons. This signal is altered following SCI, resulting in changes to the appearance of and function of the NMJ. Dr. Hill's role is limited to generating SCI tissue.