Wester Knut, Hove Leiv M, Barndon Roger, Craven Alexander R, Hugdahl Kenneth
Department of Clinical Medicine K1, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway.
Department of Neurosurgery, Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2018 Jun 18;12:234. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2018.00234. eCollection 2018.
Developmental cortical plasticity with reorganization of cerebral cortex, has been known to occur in young and adult animals after permanent, restricted elimination of afferent (visual or somatosensory) input. In animals, cortical representation of unaffected muscles or sensory areas has been shown to invade the neighboring cortex when this is deprived of its normal sensory input or motor functions. Some studies indicate that similar cortical plasticity may take place in adult humans. : In patients with a high cervical spinal cord injury leaving the patient without any movements of the fingers, we performed fMRI studies of the cortical representation of an elbow flexor muscle before and after a surgical procedure that changed its function to a thumb flexor, thus providing the patient with a useful grip. : Preoperatively, the elbow flexion movement was elicited from a cortical area corresponding with the "elbow area" in healthy individuals. Despite the fact that an elbow flexor was used for the post-operative key-grip, this movement in the tetraplegic patients was elicited from a similar brain region as in healthy controls (the "hand area"). This supports our hypothesis that control of that muscle shifts from a brain region typically associated with elbow movement, to one typically associated with wrist movements. : The findings presented here show with fMRI that the human cortex is capable of reorganizing itself spatially after a relatively acute change in the periphery.
已知在永久性、局限性消除传入（视觉或躯体感觉）输入后，幼年和成年动物会出现具有大脑皮质重组的发育性皮质可塑性。在动物中，当未受影响的肌肉或感觉区域的皮质表征被剥夺其正常感觉输入或运动功能时，已显示其会侵入相邻皮质。一些研究表明，成年人类可能也会发生类似的皮质可塑性。：在患有高位颈脊髓损伤且手指无法运动的患者中，我们对一名肘屈肌的皮质表征进行了功能磁共振成像（fMRI）研究，该肘屈肌在一次外科手术后其功能转变为拇指屈肌，从而为患者提供了一种有用的抓握方式。：术前，肘屈运动由与健康个体中“肘部区域”相对应的皮质区域引发。尽管术后关键抓握动作使用的是肘屈肌，但四肢瘫痪患者的这一运动是由与健康对照者相似的脑区（“手部区域”）引发的。这支持了我们的假设，即该肌肉的控制从通常与肘部运动相关的脑区转移到了通常与腕部运动相关的脑区。：此处呈现的研究结果通过功能磁共振成像表明，在周边相对急性变化后，人类皮质能够在空间上进行自我重组。
