Motor imagery and gait control in Parkinson's disease: techniques and new perspectives in neurorehabilitation.

Introduction: Motor imagery (MI), defined as the ability to mentally represent an action without actual movement, has been used to improve motor function in athletes and, more recently, in neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease (PD). Several studies have investigated the neural correlates of motor imagery, which change also depending on the action imagined.

Areas Covered: This review focuses on locomotion, which is a crucial activity in everyday life and is often impaired by neurological conditions.

Differentiation among bio- and augmented- feedback in technologically assisted rehabilitation.

: In rehabilitation practice, the term 'feedback' is often improperly used, with augmented feedback and biofeedback frequently confused, especially when referring to the human-machine interaction during technologically assisted training. The absence of a clear differentiation between these categories represents an unmet need for rehabilitation, emphasized by the advent of new technologies making extensive use of video feedback, exergame, and virtual reality.: In this review we tried to present scientific knowledge about feedback, biofeedback, augmented feedback and neurofeedback, and related differences in rehabilitation settings, for a more proper use of this terminology.

Visuomotor Integration for Coupled Hand Movements in Healthy Subjects and Patients With Stroke.

Many studies have investigated the bilateral upper limb coordination during movements under different motor and visual conditions. Bilateral training has also been proposed as an effective rehabilitative protocol for patients with stroke. However, the factors influencing in-phase vs.

Rehabilitative devices for a top-down approach.

Introduction: In recent years, neurorehabilitation has moved from a 'bottom-up' to a 'top down' approach. This change has also involved the technological devices developed for motor and cognitive rehabilitation. It implies that during a task or during therapeutic exercises, new 'top-down' approaches are being used to stimulate the brain in a more direct way to elicit plasticity-mediated motor re-learning.