The supraspinal connectome consists of dozens of neuronal populations that project axons from the brain to the spinal cord to influence a wide range of motor, autonomic, and sensory functions. The complexity and wide distribution of supraspinal neurons present significant technical challenges, leading most spinal cord injury research to focus on a handful of major pathways such as the corticospinal, rubrospinal, and raphespinal. Much less is known about many additional populations that carry information to modulate or compensate for these main pathways, or which carry pre-autonomic and other information of high value to individuals with spinal injury. A confluence of technical developments, however, now enables a whole-connectome study of spinal cord injury. Improved viral labeling, tissue clearing, and automated registration to 3D atlases can quantify supraspinal neurons throughout the murine brain, offering a practical means to track responses to injury and treatment on an unprecedented scale. Here we discuss the need for expanded connectome-wide analyses in spinal injury research, illustrate the potential by discussing a new web-based resource for brain-wide study of supraspinal neurons, and highlight future prospects for connectome analyses.

脊髓上连接组由数十个神经元群组成，这些神经元群将轴突从大脑投射到脊髓，以影响广泛的运动、自主和感觉功能。脊髓上神经元的复杂性和广泛分布提出了重大的技术挑战，导致大多数脊髓损伤研究集中于少数主要通路，例如皮质脊髓、红核脊髓和中缝脊髓。对于许多携带调节或补偿这些主要通路的信息，或携带对脊柱损伤个体具有高价值的前自主神经和其他信息的其他群体，我们知之甚少。然而，技术发展的融合现在使得脊髓损伤的全连接组研究成为可能。改进的病毒标记、组织清除和自动注册到 3D 图谱可以量化整个小鼠大脑中的脊髓上神经元，从而提供一种实用的方法来跟踪对损伤和治疗的反应，规模空前。在这里，我们讨论了脊柱损伤研究中扩展全连接组分析的必要性，通过讨论用于脊髓上神经元全脑研究的新的基于网络的资源来说明其潜力，并强调了连接组分析的未来前景。