A major concern for patients after spinal cord injury is whether or not they will ever walk again. For completely paralysed patients this prospect is slim, but the outlook for those with partial cord lesions is more hopeful. Any programme, such as that suggested in the paper by Wirz et al (this issue, pp 93–96), which may increase the likelihood of subsequent ambulation is to be welcomed.1

Control of locomotion in primates is predominantly supraspinal. In the thalamic macaque monkey electrical stimulation of the posterior subthalamic region or the midbrain tegmentum just ventral to the inferior colliculi produced stepping movements.2 This was abolished in …