RESEARCH ARTICLE
Peak Activation Shifts in the Sensorimotor Cortex of Chronic Stroke Patients Following Robot-assisted Rehabilitation Therapy
Loukas G. Astrakas1, Shasha Li2, 3, 4, Mark P. Ottensmeyer2, 5, Christian Pusatere3, 4, Michael A. Moskowitz2, 4, 6, A. Aria Tzika2, 3, 4, *
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2021Volume: 14
First Page: 8
Last Page: 15
Publisher ID: TONIJ-14-8
DOI: 10.2174/1874440002114010008
Article History:
Received Date: 9/2/2021Revision Received Date: 23/4/2021
Acceptance Date: 8/5/2021
Electronic publication date: 07/07/2021
Collection year: 2021
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background:
Ischemic stroke is the most common cause of complex chronic disability and the third leading cause of death worldwide. In recovering stroke patients, peak activation within the ipsilesional primary motor cortex (M1) during the performance of a simple motor task has been shown to exhibit an anterior shift in many studies and a posterior shift in other studies.
Objective:
We investigated this discrepancy in chronic stroke patients who completed a robot-assisted rehabilitation therapy program.
Methods:
Eight chronic stroke patients with an intact M1 and 13 Healthy Control (HC) volunteers underwent 300 functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans while performing a grip task at different force levels with a robotic device. The patients were trained with the same robotic device over a 10-week intervention period and their progress was evaluated serially with the Fugl-Meyer and Modified Ashworth scales. Repeated measure analyses were used to assess group differences in locations of peak activity in the sensorimotor cortex (SM) and the relationship of such changes with scores on the Fugl-Meyer Upper Extremity (FM UE) scale.
Results:
Patients moving their stroke-affected hand had proportionally more peak activations in the primary motor area and fewer peak activations in the somatosensory cortex than the healthy controls (P=0.009). They also showed an anterior shift of peak activity on average of 5.3-mm (P<0.001). The shift correlated negatively with FM UE scores (P=0.002).
Conclusion:
A stroke rehabilitation grip task with a robotic device was confirmed to be feasible during fMRI scanning and thus amenable to be used to assess plastic changes in neurological motor activity. Location of peak activity in the SM is a promising clinical neuroimaging index for the evaluation and monitoring of chronic stroke patients.
