Activity-dependent brain stimulation and robot-assisted movements for use-dependent plasticity

Functional restoration after stroke is an ongoing challenge even with intensive rehabilitation programs. In addition to traditional rehabilitation training, brain stimulation techniques have been explored to increase the excitability of the stimulated motor cortex and to augment the response to afferent input during motor exercises (Edwardson et al., 2013). Recent approaches examined single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) applied concurrently with voluntary movements for more specific and efficacious plasticity induction (Bütefisch et al., 2004, 2011; Thabit et al., 2010).
Source: Clinical Neurophysiology - Category: Neuroscience Authors: Tags: Editorial Source Type: research