Introduction:
The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of passive biaxial ankle movement therapy on cortical activities. We hypothesized that biaxial ankle passive movement therapy changes patterns of sensorimotor cortical activations during ankle passive movement in chronic stroke.
Methods:
Seventeen patients with stroke were randomized to either experimental or control group. The experimental group (n=11) received the biaxial ankle training and the control group (n=6) had conventional therapies on affected ankle for a 30-minute daily session, five times a week for a month. Outcome measure was cortical activations by measuring the relative changes of oxygenated hemoglobin concentration between ipsilesional-/contralesional hemisphere during passive ankle movement using functional near-infrared spectroscopy(fNIRS)(Figure 1). All assessments was conducted before and after the training. Significance level was 0.05.
Results:
fNIRS images showed that ipsilesional oxyhemoglobin concentration increased around primary sensorimotor cortex (SMC) area in both control and experimental groups at the baseline (
P
<0.05). After the ankle training, the ipsilesional oxyhemoglobin concentration significantly increased around somatosensory area for both control and experimental groups (
P
<0.05, Figure 2).
Conclusions:
The results of this study showed significant ipsilesional cortical activation in SMC during biaxial ankle movement before and after the ankle training. Further study on the analysis according to the direction of ankle movement for both ipsilesional and contralesional brain area is needed.
Evaluation of cortical plasticity in children with cerebral palsy undergoing constraint-induced movement therapy based on functional near-infrared spectroscopy
