Cortical excitability and post-stroke recovery.

Stroke is the leading cause of adult disability. Recent studies show that the brain can engage in a limited process of neural repair after stroke: re-mapping of sensory and motor function and sprouting of new connections in peri-infarct cortex surrounding the stroke. Changes in cortical sensory and motor maps and alterations in axonal structure are dependent on patterned neuronal activity. The central cellular process in these events is alteration in neuronal response to incoming inputs--manipulations that increase neuronal firing to a given input are likely to induce changes in neuronal structure and alterations in cortical maps. Because post-stroke neural repair and recovery also involves neuronal sprouting and re-mapping of cortical sensory and motor representations, it has been assumed that changes in neuronal excitability underlie neural repair.