Born to adapt, but not in your dreams.

The brain adapts to changes that take place in the body. Deprivation of input results in size reduction of cortical representations, whereas an increase in input results in an increase of representational space. Amputation forms one of the most dramatic disturbances of the integrity of the body.

Psychological and physical activity training for older persons: who does not attend?

Background: Interventions to promote successful aging include psychological and physical activity programs. Identification of determinants of attendance of older persons may be useful to develop strategies to improve attendance. For physical activity programs determinants of attendance have been investigated extensively.

Differences between participants and non-participants in an RCT on physical activity and psychological interventions for older persons.

Background And Aims: Volunteer bias in intervention studies on successful aging has been poorly explored. This paper investigated differences between participants and non-participants of the Groningen Intervention Study on Successful Aging (GISSA) over a wide range of demographic, physical, psychological and social subject characteristics.

Methods: Subjects were recruited among a longitudinal cohort study (Groningen Longitudinal Aging Study) and included 558 men and 711 women, aged 65-96 years, who were invited to participate in the GISSA.

Patients' and relatives' reports of disturbances 9 months after stroke: subjective changes in physical functioning, cognition, emotion, and behavior.

Objective: To quantify the frequency of physical, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral changes as reported by patients and relatives after a stroke and to determine their degree of agreement.

Design: Follow-up study of 172 stroke patients to a mean of 9.8 months poststroke and 143 relatives interviewed separately with a questionnaire.

Cognitive recovery after stroke: a 2-year follow-up.

Objectives: To determine (1) whether long-term improvement of cognitive function takes place after stroke and (2) which clinical factors influence cognitive recovery.

Design: Cohort study with patients who were assessed at 2.3 and 27.

The role of motor imagery in learning a totally novel movement.

The aim of the present study is to gain more insight into the mechanisms underlying mental practice. The question of whether a totally novel movement may be learned by mental practice was investigated. Healthy young adults had to learn the abduction of the big toe (dominant right foot) without moving the other toes or the foot.