Neural correlates of within-session practice effects in mild motor impairment after stroke: a preliminary investigation
- PDF / 938,690 Bytes
- 10 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 66 Downloads / 179 Views
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Neural correlates of within‑session practice effects in mild motor impairment after stroke: a preliminary investigation Elizabeth Regan1 · Julius Fridriksson2 · Sydney Y. Schaefer3 · Chris Rorden4 · Leonardo Bonilha5 · Jennapher Lingo VanGilder3 · Jill Campbell Stewart1 Received: 5 May 2020 / Accepted: 16 October 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract While the structural integrity of the corticospinal tract (CST) has been shown to support motor performance after stroke, the neural correlates of within-session practice effects are not known. The purpose of this preliminary investigation was to examine the structural brain correlates of within-session practice effects on a functional motor task completed with the more impaired arm after stroke. Eleven individuals with mild motor impairment (mean age 57.0 ± 9.4 years, mean months poststroke 37.0 ± 66.1, able to move ≥ 26 blocks on the Box and Blocks Test) due to left hemisphere stroke completed structural MRI and practiced a functional motor task that involved spooning beans from a start cup to three distal targets. Performance on the motor task improved with practice (p = 0.004), although response was variable. Baseline motor performance (Block 1) correlated with integrity of the CST (r = − 0.696) while within-session practice effects (change from Block 1 to Block 3) did not. Instead, practice effects correlated with degree of lesion to the superior longitudinal fasciculus (r = 0.606), a pathway that connects frontal and parietal brain regions previously shown to support motor learning. This difference between white matter tracts associated with baseline motor performance and within-session practice effects may have implications for understanding response to motor practice and the application of brain-focused intervention approaches aimed at improving hand function after stroke. Keywords Motor practice · Upper extremity · Stroke · Diffusion imaging
Introduction
Communicated by Winston D Byblow. * Jill Campbell Stewart [email protected] 1
Department of Exercise Science, University of South Carolina, 921 Assembly Street, Room 301D, Columbia, SC 29208, USA
2
Department of Communication and Disorders Sciences, University of South Carolina, Columbia, USA
3
School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering, Arizona State University, Tempe, USA
4
Department of Psychology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, USA
5
Department of Neurology, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, USA
Behavioral practice based on the principles of motor skill learning is an important component of rehabilitation interventions aimed at improving arm motor function after stroke (Winstein and Stewart 2006; Winstein and Wolf 2008). Although individuals post-stroke generally have the capacity to learn a novel motor skill (Boyd et al. 2007; Meehan et al. 2011; Pohl et al. 2006; Winstein et al. 1999), variability in responsiveness to practice is often present. One factor in predicting responsiveness to
Data Loading...
