Leung Ada W S, Barrett Lauren M, Butterworth Darcy, Werther Karin, Dawson Deirdre R, Brintnell E Sharon
Department of Occupational Therapy, University of AlbertaEdmonton, AB, Canada; Neuroscience and Mental Health Institute, University of AlbertaEdmonton, AB, Canada; Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Health SciencesToronto, ON, Canada.
Department of Occupational Therapy, University of Alberta Edmonton, AB, Canada.
Front Psychol. 2016 Aug 30;7:1266. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01266. eCollection 2016.
This case study examined the effects of auditory working memory (WM) training on neuroplastic changes in stroke survivors and how such effects might be influenced by self-perceived stress. Two participants with a history of stroke participated in the study. One of them had a higher level of self-perceived stress. Both participants underwent a course of auditory WM training and completed baseline and post-training assessments such as self-perceived stress, performance satisfaction questionnaires, behavioral task performance, and functional magnetic resonance imaging. They were trained on a computerized auditory WM task (n-back) 5 days a week for 6 weeks, for a total of 20 h. Participant 1 had high levels of perceived stress, both pre- and post-training, and showed improvement on the satisfaction aspect of functional engagement only. Participant 2 had lower levels of perceived stress and demonstrated improvements on all performance tasks. Neuroimaging results showed evidence of improved neural efficiency on the trained task for participant 2. The results shed light on the need to evaluate psychological influences, e.g., stress, when studying the neuroplastic changes in people with stroke. However, the case design approach and other factors that might have positively influenced outcomes mean that these results must be interpreted with a great deal of caution. Future studies using a larger sample are recommended to verify the findings.
本案例研究考察了听觉工作记忆（WM）训练对中风幸存者神经可塑性变化的影响，以及这种影响可能如何受到自我感知压力的影响。两名有中风病史的参与者参与了该研究。其中一人自我感知压力水平较高。两名参与者都接受了一个疗程的听觉WM训练，并完成了基线和训练后的评估，如自我感知压力、表现满意度问卷、行为任务表现和功能磁共振成像。他们每周5天接受计算机化听觉WM任务（n-back）训练，为期6周，共20小时。参与者1在训练前和训练后都有较高的感知压力水平，仅在功能参与的满意度方面有所改善。参与者2的感知压力水平较低，在所有表现任务上都有改善。神经影像学结果显示参与者2在训练任务上神经效率有所提高。这些结果揭示了在研究中风患者的神经可塑性变化时评估心理影响（如压力）的必要性。然而，案例设计方法和其他可能对结果产生积极影响的因素意味着这些结果必须非常谨慎地解释。建议未来使用更大样本的研究来验证这些发现。
