The use of non-invasive microwave energy to produce spinal cord injuries with intraspinal hyperthermia was studied in experimental animals. Lesions were produced with external beam microwave irradiation at 915 MHz in rabbits, using intraspinal temperature levels from 40 to 43 degrees C., and periods of heating ranging from 15 to 60 minutes. The parameters which determined thermal dose were the degree of temperature elevation in the spinal cord relative to the body core and the duration of that elevation. Thermal dose-response relationships were established by monitoring intraspinal temperatures during heating using an epidural thermistor probe at T8. Animals were examined 48 hours after lesion production and assigned a neurological grade. Injuries were grouped clinically according to their degree of relative functional severity as minimal, mild, moderate, or severe. Evaluation of spinal cord integrity was carried out by recording cortical somatosensory evoked responses (SER) following sciatic nerve stimulation. Increased SER latencies were first observed after heating the spinal cord to 41 degrees for 60 minutes. Impulse transmission was absent after heating to 42 degrees for 30 minutes, a thermal dose which produced complete paraplegia. Morphologically, lesion size and configuration were directly related to the thermal dose used in their production. Low thermal doses produced white matter edema limited to the posterior columns, while larger doses resulted in demyelination, retrograde neuronal changes, and infarction of the dorsal half of the cord. High thermal doses also produced foci of hemorrhage in the gray and white matter of the dorsal cord. These studies suggest that reproducible spinal cord injuries with predictable levels of neurological severity can be produced by noninvasive microwave heating.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)