The influence of prosthetic suspension on gait and cortical modulations is persons with a transfemoral amputation: socket-suspended versus bone-anchored prosthesis.

Background: Persons with a transfemoral amputation (TFA) often experience difficulties in daily-life ambulation, including an asymmetrical and less stable gait pattern and a greater cognitive demand of walking. However, it remains unclear whether this is effected by the prosthetic suspension, as eliminating the non-rigid prosthetic connection may influence stability and cortical activity during walking. Spatiotemporal and stability-related gait parameters, as well as cortical activity during walking, were evaluated between highly active individuals (MFC-level K3-4) with a TFA and able-bodied (AB) persons, and between persons with a bone-anchored prosthesis (BAP) and those with a socket-suspended prosthesis (SSP).

Addressing the inconsistent electric fields of tDCS by using patient-tailored configurations in chronic stroke: Implications for treatment.

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a promising tool to improve and speed up motor rehabilitation after stroke, but inconsistent clinical effects refrain tDCS from clinical implementation. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the need for individualized tDCS configurations in stroke, considering interindividual variability in brain anatomy and motor function representation. We simulated tDCS in individualized MRI-based finite element head models of 21 chronic stroke subjects and 10 healthy age-matched controls.

Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Targeting the Entire Motor Network Does Not Increase Corticospinal Excitability.

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the contralateral primary motor cortex of the target muscle (conventional tDCS) has been described to enhance corticospinal excitability, as measured with transcranial magnetic stimulation. Recently, tDCS targeting the brain regions functionally connected to the contralateral primary motor cortex (motor network tDCS) was reported to enhance corticospinal excitability more than conventional tDCS. We compared the effects of motor network tDCS, 2 mA conventional tDCS, and sham tDCS on corticospinal excitability in 21 healthy participants in a randomized, single-blind within-subject study design.

Individual differences in error-related frontal midline theta activity during visuomotor adaptation.

Post-feedback frontal midline EEG activity has been found to correlate with error magnitude during motor adaptation. However, the role of this neuronal activity remains to be elucidated. It has been hypothesized that post-feedback frontal midline activity may represent a prediction error, which in turn may be directly related to the adaptation process or to an unspecific orienting response.

A Method to Experimentally Estimate the Conductivity of Chronic Stroke Lesions: A Tool to Individualize Transcranial Electric Stimulation.

The inconsistent response to transcranial electric stimulation in the stroke population is attributed to, among other factors, unknown effects of stroke lesion conductivity on stimulation strength at the targeted brain areas. Volume conduction models are promising tools to determine optimal stimulation settings. However, stroke lesion conductivity is often not considered in these models as a source of inter-subject variability.

Theta but not beta power is positively associated with better explicit motor task learning.

Neurophysiologic correlates of motor learning that can be monitored during neurorehabilitation interventions can facilitate the development of more effective learning methods. Previous studies have focused on the role of the beta band (14-30 Hz) because of its clear response during motor activity. However, it is difficult to discriminate between beta activity related to learning a movement and performing the movement.

ASH: an Automatic pipeline to generate realistic and individualized chronic Stroke volume conduction Head models.

Large structural brain changes, such as chronic stroke lesions, alter the current pathways throughout the patients' head and therefore have to be taken into account when performing transcranial direct current stimulation simulations.We implement, test and distribute the first MATLAB pipeline that automatically generates realistic and individualized volume conduction head models of chronic stroke patients, by combining the already existing software SimNIBS, for the mesh generation, and lesion identification with neighborhood data analysis, for the lesion identification. To highlight the impact of our pipeline, we investigated the sensitivity of the electric field distribution to the lesion location and lesion conductivity in 16 stroke patients' datasets.

Cortical dynamics during preparation and execution of reactive balance responses with distinct postural demands.

The contributions of the cerebral cortex to human balance control are clearly demonstrated by the profound impact of cortical lesions on the ability to maintain standing balance. The cerebral cortex is thought to regulate subcortical postural centers to maintain upright balance and posture under varying environmental conditions and task demands. However, the cortical mechanisms that support standing balance remain elusive.