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Health See other Health Articles Title: Electrical Stimulation May Aid Stroke Recovery Medscape... NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) appears to enhance motor learning skills after stroke, according to Belgian and Polish researchers. The hope is that "if we combine neuro-rehab based on motor learning principles with non-invasive brain stimulations (NIBS), we could speed up and enhance recovery in stroke patients," Dr. Yves Vandermeeren of Universite catholique de Louvain in Namur, Belgium, told Reuters Health by email. In a paper online December 9 in Brain, Dr. Vandermeeren and colleagues explain that the new work builds on earlier experience. "This translational study establishes a crucial link between a lab experience (NIBS can enhance transiently motor function in healthy individuals and in stroke patients) and an implementation in day-to-day clinical practice (NIBS can enhance the benefits of neuro-rehab)," Dr. Vandermeeren said. The researchers enrolled 19 hemiparetic stroke patients with a motor deficit in the upper limb. In a double-blind, randomized fashion, each patient received a real stimulation as well as a sham stimulation during two separate sessions. During the first stimulation session (real or sham), the patients learned how to perform a task with a paralyzed hand, combining speed and accuracy. One week later, they performed the learned task while a functional MRI scanner recorded their cerebral activity. After one week, this experience was repeated with the other (sham or real) stimulation. As in the previous study, the non-invasive cerebral stimulation amplified the motor learning capacity of the paralyzed hand and long-term memory retention. The intervention was associated with a trend towards normalization of the brain activation pattern during performance of the learned motor skill relative to the sham series, the researchers say. A similar trend towards normalization relative to sham was observed during performance of a simple, untrained task. "We speculate," said Dr. Vandermeeren, "that the combination of motor skill learning and NIBS selected/stabilised the best possible motor network to achieve the task (skill) and 'activated' brain plasticity. This is why the network of activated motor areas (evaluated by functional MRI) tends to be normalised one week after NIBS, resulting in a largely superior motor performance than one week after sham." "It is possible that in 5 to 10 years, all of neuro-rehab sessions (physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy) will start with the placement of electrodes," he concluded. Commenting on the findings by email, Dr. Julius Fridriksson of the University of South Carolina in Columbia told Reuters Health that "tDCS has been shown to be a promising technique to enhance outcome of rehabilitation in stroke." Dr. Fridriksson, co-director of the McCausland Center for Brain Imaging, added that the study "is particularly interesting as it suggests that the outcome of very short-term rehabilitation in stroke can be enhanced by tDCS. This work as well as similar research by others certainly provides hope for stroke survivors by suggesting that electrical brain stimulation may improve stroke recovery." "Naturally," he concluded, "more studies with larger numbers of patients and more treatment are needed to further verify the potential positive effects of tDCS upon rehabilitation." SOURCE: bit.ly/1reTbLC Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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