Hand and Brain -Neurorehabilitation-

Remodeling the Brain Plastic Structural Brain Changes Produced by Different Motor Therapies After Stroke Lynne V. Gauthier, MA; Edward Taub, PhD; Christi Perkins, BS; Magdalene Ortmann; Victor W. Mark, MD; Gitendra Uswatte, PhD Department of Psychology (L.V.G., E.T. C.P., M.O., G.U.), Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (V.W.M.), and Department of Physical Therapy (G.U.), University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Ala. Stroke . 2008;39:1520-1525.     Background and Purpose —Studies on adult stroke patients have demonstrated functional changes in cortical excitability, metabolic rate, or blood flow after motor therapy, measures that can fluctuate rapidly over time. This study evaluated whether evidence could also be found for structural brain changes during an efficacious rehabilitation program. Methods —Chronic stroke patients were randomly assigned to receive either constraint-induced movement therapy (n 16) or a comparison ...

Posture influences motor imagery: An fMRI study Floris P. de Lange, a, ⁎ ,1 Rick C. Helmich, a,b,1 and Ivan Toni, a,c a F.C. Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Radboud University Nijmegen, Kapittelweg 29, 6500 HB Nijmegen, The Netherlands b Department of Neurology, Radboud University Medical Centre Nijmegen, The Netherlands c Nijmegen Institute for Cognition and Information, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands  NeuroImage 33 (2006) 609–617 Motor imagery is widely used to study cognitive aspects of the neural control of action. However, what is exactly simulated during motor imagery is still a matter of debate. On the one hand, it is conceivable that motor imagery is an embodied cognitive process, involving a simulation of movements of one’s own body. The alternative possibility is that, although motor imagery relies on knowledge of the motor processes, it does not entail an actual motor simulation that is influenced by the physical configuration...

The Embodied Nature of Motor  Imagery  Processes Highlighted by Short-Term Limb Immobilization Aurore Meugnot, Yves Almecija, and Lucette Toussaint Maison des Sciences de l’Homme et de la Société, Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition et l’Apprentissage (CERCA, CNRS, 7295), Poitiers, France Experimental Psychology 2014; Vol. 61(3):180–186 DOI: 10.1027/1618-3169/a000237   Abstract. We investigated the embodied nature of motor imagery processes through a recent use-dependent plasticity approach, a short-term limb immobilization paradigm. A splint placed on the participants ’ left-hand during a brief period of 24 h was used for immobilization. The immobilized participants performed two mental rotation tasks (a hand mental rotation task and a number mental rotation task) before (pre-test) and immediately after (post-test) the splint removal. The control group did not undergo the immobilization procedure. The main results showed an imm...