Restorative neurology and neuroscience
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Restor. Neurol. Neurosci. · Jan 2014
Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical TrialEffects of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation on freezing of gait in patients with Parkinsonism.
The aim of this study was to investigate the site-specific effects of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) on freezing of gait (FOG) in patients with parkinsonism. ⋯ Use of 10 Hz rTMS on the M1-LL and DLPFC is therapeutically effective for FOG in patients with parkinsonism.
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Restor. Neurol. Neurosci. · Jan 2014
Combining enriched environment and induced pluripotent stem cell therapy results in improved cognitive and motor function following traumatic brain injury.
Despite advances towards potential clinically viable therapies there has been only limited success in improving functional recovery following traumatic brain injury (TBI). In rats, exposure to an enriched environment (EE) improves learning and fosters motor skill development. Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) have been shown to survive transplantation and influence the recovery process. The current study evaluated EE and iPSC as a polytherapy for remediating cognitive deficits following medial frontal cortex (mFC) controlled cortical impact (CCI) injury. ⋯ Overall, EE or iPSC therapy improved cognition and motor performance, however, full cognitive restoration was seen only with the EE/iPSC treatment. These data suggest that EE/iPSC therapy should be explored as a potential, clinically relevant, treatment for TBI.
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Restor. Neurol. Neurosci. · Jan 2014
ReviewChronic pain: the role of learning and brain plasticity.
Based on theoretical considerations and recent observations, we argue that continued suffering of chronic pain is critically dependent on the state of motivational and emotional mesolimbic-prefrontal circuitry of the brain. The plastic changes that occur within this circuitry in relation to nociceptive inputs dictate the transition to chronic pain, rendering the pain less somatic and more affective in nature. ⋯ We argue that the definition of chronic pain can be recast, within the associative learning and valuation concept, as an inability to extinguish the associated memory trace, implying that supraspinal/cortical manipulations may be a more fruitful venue for adequately modulating suffering and related behavior for chronic pain. We briefly review the evidence generated to date for the proposed model and emphasize that the details of underlying mechanisms remain to be expounded.
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Restor. Neurol. Neurosci. · Jan 2014
Randomized Controlled TrialAfter vs. priming effects of anodal transcranial direct current stimulation on upper extremity motor recovery in patients with subacute stroke.
Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) of the motor cortex seems to be effective in improving motor performance in patients with chronic stroke, while some recent findings have reported conflicting results for the subacute phase. We aimed to verify whether upper extremity motor rehabilitation could be enhanced by treatment with tDCS administered before a rehabilitative session. ⋯ Anodal brain stimulation improves hand dexterity but does not increase the effectiveness of the rehabilitation directly. These results suggest the presence of aftereffects, not priming effects, of A-tDCS superimposed onto motor learning phenomena.
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Restor. Neurol. Neurosci. · Jan 2014
Comparative StudyIncreasing human leg motor cortex excitability by transcranial high frequency random noise stimulation.
Transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS) can increase the excitability of hand area of the primary motor cortex (M1). The aim of this study was to compare the efficacy of tRNS and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on the leg motor cortex. ⋯ Our results suggest that although the leg area has a deeper position in the cortex compared to the hand area, it can be reached by weak transcranial currents. Both anodal tDCS and tRNS had comparable effect on cortical excitability.