Residual Upper Arm Motor Function Primes Innervation of Paretic Forearm Muscles in Chronic Stroke after Brain-Machine Interface (BMI) Training.

Background: Abnormal upper arm-forearm muscle synergies after stroke are poorly understood. We investigated whether upper arm function primes paralyzed forearm muscles in chronic stroke patients after Brain-Machine Interface (BMI)-based rehabilitation. Shaping upper arm-forearm muscle synergies may support individualized motor rehabilitation strategies.

Brain-machine interface in chronic stroke rehabilitation: a controlled study.

Objective: Chronic stroke patients with severe hand weakness respond poorly to rehabilitation efforts. Here, we evaluated efficacy of daily brain-machine interface (BMI) training to increase the hypothesized beneficial effects of physiotherapy alone in patients with severe paresis in a double-blind sham-controlled design proof of concept study.

Methods: Thirty-two chronic stroke patients with severe hand weakness were randomly assigned to 2 matched groups and participated in 17.