Motor plasticity after extra-intracranial bypass surgery in occlusive cerebrovascular disease.

Neurology

From the Departments of Neurosurgery (D.J., A.Z., J.R., T.P., P.V.), Neurology (S.S., S.B.), and Nuclear Medicine (R.B.), Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin; Department of Neurosurgery (D.J.), Dr. Horst-Schmidt-Kliniken, Wiesbaden, Germany; Department of Clinical Neurophysiology (P.J., J.K.), Kuopio University Hospital; and Nexstim Ltd. (J.K.), Helsinki, Finland.

Published: July 2016

Objective: To explore plasticity in patients scheduled for extra-intracranial bypass surgery due to unilateral symptomatic occlusive cerebrovascular disease via navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation.

Methods: In this observational study, patients were allocated to different substudies and examined before and 3 months after operation. (1) Corticospinal excitability was determined via identification of the resting motor threshold. (2) Intracortical inhibition and facilitation were tested by paired pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation. (3) Area of cortical representation of the first dorsal interosseous muscle was identified.

Results: (1) Resting motor thresholds were higher in the affected hemispheres with impaired cerebrovascular reserve capacity compared to the unaffected hemispheres (45.7% ± 2.2% compared to 39.2% ± 1.4%, n = 39, p < 0.05). Reduced excitability normalized 3 months after revascularization (51% ± 2.6% → 45% ± 1.9%, n = 21, p < 0.05). (2) In paired pulse paradigms, there was a motor disinhibition in the operated hemispheres. (3) There was a reduction of the cortical representation areas of the first dorsal interosseous muscle (2.3 ± 0.5 cm(2) → 0.9 ± 0.6 cm(2), n = 9, p < 0.05) after operation.

Conclusions: Our data demonstrate a reversibly impaired motor cortical function in the chronically ischemic brain. In carefully selected patients, cerebral revascularization leads to improved motor output indicated by a lower resting motor threshold, intracortical disinhibition, and more focused motor cortical representation.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1212/WNL.0000000000002802DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

resting motor
12
cortical representation
12
motor
8
extra-intracranial bypass
8
bypass surgery
8
occlusive cerebrovascular
8
cerebrovascular disease
8
transcranial magnetic
8
motor threshold
8
threshold intracortical
8

Similar Publications

Developmental Trajectories and Differences in Functional Brain Network Properties of Preterm and At-Term Neonates.

Hum Brain Mapp

January 2025

Instituto de Neurobiología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Querétaro, Mexico.

Premature infants, born before 37 weeks of gestation can have alterations in neurodevelopment and cognition, even when no anatomical lesions are evident. Resting-state functional neuroimaging of naturally sleeping babies has shown altered connectivity patterns, but there is limited evidence on the developmental trajectories of functional organization in preterm neonates. By using a large dataset from the developing Human Connectome Project, we explored the differences in graph theory properties between at-term (n = 332) and preterm (n = 115) neonates at term-equivalent age, considering the age subgroups proposed by the World Health Organization for premature birth.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

During motor learning, breaks in practice are known to facilitate behavioural optimizations. Although this process has traditionally been studied over long breaks that last hours to days, recent studies in humans have demonstrated that rapid performance gains during early motor sequence learning are most pronounced after very brief breaks lasting seconds to minutes. However, the precise causal neural mechanisms that facilitate performance gains after brief breaks remain poorly understood.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The alteration of neurovascular coupling (NVC), where acute localized blood flow increases following neural activity, plays a key role in several neurovascular processes including aging and neurodegeneration. While not equivalent to NVC, the coupling between simultaneously measured cerebral blood flow (CBF) with arterial spin labeling (ASL) and blood oxygenation dependent (BOLD) signals, can also be affected. Moreover, the acquisition of BOLD data allows the assessment of resting state (RS) fMRI metrics.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Previous research on resting muscles has shown that inter-pulse interval (IPI) duration influences transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) responses, which can introduce serious confounding variables into investigations if not accounted for. However, it is far less clear how IPI influences TMS responses in active muscles. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between IPI and corticospinal excitability during submaximal isometric elbow flexion.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Decoding speech intent from non-frontal cortical areas.

J Neural Eng

January 2025

Department of Neurology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, 320 East Superior St, Chicago, IL 60611, USA, Chicago, Illinois, 60611, UNITED STATES.

Brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) have advanced greatly in decoding speech signals originating from the speech motor cortices. Primarily, these BMIs target individuals with intact speech motor cortices but who are paralyzed by disrupted connections between frontal cortices and their articulators due to brainstem stroke or motor neuron diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. A few studies have shown some information outside the speech motor cortices, such as in parietal and temporal lobes, that also may be useful for BMIs.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!