Neural correlates of motor impairment during motor imagery and motor execution in sub-cortical stroke.

Objective: This study aims at identifying the neural substrates for motor execution (ME) and motor imagery (MI) in patients after stroke and their correlations with functional outcomes.

Methods: 10 chronic stroke patients with left sub-cortical lesions and 10 unimpaired subjects were recruited. Their cortical processes were studied when they were asked to perform ME and MI unimanually using their unaffected and affected wrists during fMRI.

Can Cantonese rhymes be used in the assessment of hemispheric dominance for language?

English vowels had been proposed in previous studies to be used as a simple tool for the brain mapping of language. A proper fMRI study of Cantonese rhymes, each of which being a required and fundamental unit of a Cantonese syllable, remains to be carried out. Using an auditory task with Cantonese rhymes which carry no semantic meaning, we observed a minimal amount of positive BOLD signal at the caudate nucleus when Cantonese rhymes were contrasted with their corresponding filtered sounds.

Hierarchical coding of characters in the ventral and dorsal visual streams of Chinese language processing.

Functional and spatial hierarchical organization of increasingly language-like word forms has been proposed for alphabetic languages at the occipitotemporal cortex for visual word recognition. In the logographic Chinese language system, similar functional and spatial hierarchical presentations of brain responses to sublexical orthographic structure are beginning to be explored. In this study, we used whole-brain fMRI to show that a hierarchical coding of increasingly language-like character type is present in multiple Chinese language processing areas.

Two modes of weight training programs and patellar stabilization.

Context: Underconditioned patellar stabilizing muscles could be a predisposing factor for patellar instability.

Objective: To examine the effect of 2 modes of weight training on the size of the vastus medialis obliquus (VMO), the resting position and passive mobility of the patella, and the strength of the knee extensor muscles.

Design: Prospective intervention, repeated measures in 3 groups.

Cerebral plasticity after subcortical stroke as revealed by cortico-muscular coherence.

The latency estimation of cortico-muscular coherence (CMCoh) could provide valuable information, especially for the pathological study. However, the conduction time from the central cortical rhythm to peripheral oscillations has not been explored for stroke patients. In this study one recently proposed method, maximizing coherence, was applied into the coherence analysis to estimate the latency by which the extensor carpi radialis electromyographic signals lagged behind the electroencephalographic time series with seven subcortical stroke subjects.

Study on connectivity between coherent central rhythm and electromyographic activities.

Whether afferent feedback contributes to the generation of cortico-muscular coherence (CMCoh) remains an open question. In the present study, a multivariate autoregressive (MVAR) model and partial directed coherence (PDC) were applied to investigate the causal influences between the central rhythm and electromyographic (EMG) signals in the process of CMCoh. The system modeling included activities from the contralateral and ipsilateral primary sensorimotor cortex (M1/S1), supplementary motor area (SMA) and the time series from extensor carpi radialis (ECR) muscles.

Ciprofloxacin-induced palatal tremor.

We describe an 84-year-old man with an unusual clinical presentation of palatal tremor in association with ciprofloxacin treatment. The patient had rhythmical movements not only of the soft palate but also of the face and trunk. Complete resolution of the symptoms occurred 2 days after discontinuation of ciprofloxacin and administration of sodium valproate.

Neuroanatomy of adult strabismus: a voxel-based morphometric analysis of magnetic resonance structural scans.

Cerebral deficit has been implicated in the genesis of strabismus and in the mechanisms adopted to compensate for the visual disorder. Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) was applied to magnetic resonance images of strabismic adults to detect any abnormal brain anatomy, which could not be easily identified by simple inspection. The gray matter volume in strabismic adults was smaller than that in normal subjects at the areas consistent with the occipital eye field (OEF) and parietal eye field (PEF).