100 Hz Localized vibration increases ipsilateral cerebellar areas activity during a motor task in healthy subjects: Three Cases Report.

Background and Purpose. The exact mechanism thought which Localized vibration (LV) acts on the motor system at the suprasegmental level is still poorly understood. In this paper we have reported three cases of healthy men exposed to 100 Hz localized vibration during a motor task. Case Description. This case report describes 3 healthy men (age 23 years). Outcomes. During fMRI participants were engaged in a right-hand self-paced finger tapping (FT) task, with and without a 100 Hz LV of the right hand. After standard images preprocessing and normalization, a fix-effect GLM analysis was used to test the effect of vibratory stimulation on motor network. A bilateral activation, greater in the left hemisphere than in the right one, in the frontal premotor and supplementary motor areas (SMA), central gyrus (M1), postcentral gyrus, was found without any statistical significance between conditions. Activation in the left lenticular nucleus and thalamus was also found without differences between conditions. When using the FT activation map as a mask, the analysis showed that only the right cerebellum correlate positively with the vibratory stimulation. Discussion. Using fMR a localized vibratory stimulus was found to significantly increase the activity in homo-lateral motor cerebellar areas during a motor task. This finding aims to trigger new studies on how a LV can influence motor recovery in neurorehabilitation and to (re) consider the role of cerebellum in the rehabilitation strategy.