Interventions being developed to manipulate neuroplasticity

In the January edition of Nature reviews Neurology http://bit.ly/gxRTKA Dr Dimyan and his group from the Human Cortical Physiology and Stroke Neurorehabilitation Section, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke USA discuss neuroplasticity in the context of motor rehabilitation after stroke

Approximately one-third of patients post stroke exhibit persistent disability after the initial cerebrovascular episode. This disability can be a combination of speech cognitive and movement impairments with motor impairments accounting for most post stroke disability. Intensive exercise practice is the key tool for improving movement ability and the primary goals of post stroke rehabilitation is to increase the patients independent functional activity capability to improve quality of life needs of individual patient.

In this article, Dimyan and Cohen provide a review of neuroplasticity associated with poststroke motor impairment and highlight the latest experimental interventions being developed to manipulate neuroplasticity to enhance motor rehabilitation. As the methods for providing motor rehabilitation change,

The HandTutor, ArmTutor and LegTutor systems incorporate the concept of virtual functional tasks to give the patient a motivating platform, regardless of their movement ability, in which to perform intensive active exercise practice.