Functional Preservation and Reorganization of Brain during Motor Imagery in Patients with Incomplete Spinal Cord Injury: A Pilot fMRI Study.

ABSTRACT: Motor imagery (MI) is a cognitive process involved in mentally rehearsing movement representations, and it has great potential for the rehabilitation of motor function in patients with spinal cord injuries. The aim of this study was to explore changes in the brain activation patterns in incomplete spinal cord injury (ISCI) patients during motor execution (ME) and MI tasks, and to thereby explore whether MI shares similar motor-related networks with ME in ISCI patients. Seventeen right-handed ISCI patients with impaired motor function of their right ankles and 17 age- and gender-matched healthy controls were enrolled in this study. The activation patterns of the ISCI subjects and those of the healthy subjects were compared, both during mental dorsi-plantar flexion of the right ankle (the MI

SUBMITTER: Chen X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4753296 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature