Reaching movements to spatial targets require motor patterns at the shoulder to be coordinated carefully with those at the elbow to smoothly move the hand through space. While the motor cortex is involved in this volitional task, considerable debate remains about how this cortical region participates in planning and controlling movement. This article reviews two opposing interpretations of moto...

The substrates that mediate recovery of motor function after stroke are incompletely understood. Several primate and human studies proposed the involvement of the premotor cortex of the lesioned hemisphere. Here, we studied four chronic stroke patients with focal subcortical lesions affecting the corticospinal outflow originating in the primary motor cortex (M1) and good motor recovery. We test...

Motor function recovery after stroke typically plateaus after six months. Case reports suggest that hypnosis has the potential to stimulate further recovery of function beyond this period. A pilot clinical investigation of hypnosis-aided recovery of motor function after stroke is presented. Baseline hand motor performance was quantified for six stroke subjects with a force-following task. Brain...

Abstract Introduction: The cerebral palsy and brachial plexus injury may cause asymmetry in the use of upper limbs (UL). This condition requires early treatment to reduce impact child's life; therefore, several proposed interventions aim increase their functional independence. Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy (CIMT) Hand-Arm Bimanual Intensive (HABIT) have been widely considered effective im...

Volitional motor control generally involves deciding 'where to go' and 'how to go there'. Understanding how these two constituent pieces of motor decision coordinate is an important issue in neuroscience. Although the two processes could be intertwined, they are generally thought to occur in series, whereby visuomotor planning begins with the knowledge of a final hand position to attain. Howeve...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Previous studies have noted changes in resting-state functional connectivity during motor recovery following stroke. However, these studies always uncover various patterns of motor recovery. Moreover, subgroups of stroke patients with different outcomes in hand function have rarely been studied. MATERIALS AND METHODS We selected 24 patients who had a subcortical stroke ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Secondary degeneration of the pyramidal tract after focal motor pathway stroke has been observed by diffusion tensor imaging. However, the relationships between outcomes in hand function and secondary degeneration in widespread regions are not well understood. For the first time, we investigated the differences of secondary degeneration across the whole brain between subg...

BACKGROUND Standard assessment instruments cannot differentiate patients with minimal residual hand function after stroke. As a result, changes in motor recovery are difficult to document using currently-available tests. In a controlled study with chronic stroke patients without residual finger extension, a new hand function test has been developed. This instrument, called Broetz Hand Test (BzH...

Adenosine acts as neuromodulator in the brain, which its involvement in a wide range of brain processes and diseases has been studied, such as epilepsy, sleep, anxiety, panic disorder, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and schizophrenia. Adenosine receptors have been detected: A1R, A2AR (A2AR), A2BR, and A3R. A1R and A2R inhibit cAMP production, while A2AR and A2BR stimulate cAMP product...

Cortical oscillations have been the target of many recent investigations, because it has been proposed that they could function to solve the "binding" problem. In the motor cortex, oscillatory activity has been reported at a variety of frequencies between approximately 4 and approximately 60 Hz. Previous research has shown that 15-30 Hz oscillatory activity in the primary motor cortex is cohere...