Department of Health Sciences and Research, College of Health Professions, Medical University of South Carolina, 77 President St., Charleston, SC 29425, USA.
Division of Occupational Therapy, Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, College of Health Professions, Medical University of South Carolina, 151B Rutledge Ave., Charleston, SC 29425, USA.
Sensors (Basel). 2023 Jun 7;23(12):5398. doi: 10.3390/s23125398.
Hand sensorimotor deficits often result from stroke, limiting the ability to perform daily living activities. Sensorimotor deficits are heterogeneous among stroke survivors. Previous work suggests a cause of hand deficits is altered neural connectivity. However, the relationships between neural connectivity and specific aspects of sensorimotor control have seldom been explored. Understanding these relationships is important for developing personalized rehabilitation strategies to improve individual patients' specific sensorimotor deficits and, thus, rehabilitation outcomes. Here, we investigated the hypothesis that specific aspects of sensorimotor control will be associated with distinct neural connectivity in chronic stroke survivors. Twelve chronic stroke survivors performed a paretic hand grip-and-relax task while EEG was collected. Four aspects of hand sensorimotor grip control were extracted, including reaction time, relaxation time, force magnitude control, and force direction control. EEG source connectivity in the bilateral sensorimotor regions was calculated in α and β frequency bands during grip preparation and execution. Each of the four hand grip measures was significantly associated with a distinct connectivity measure. These results support further investigations into functional neural connectivity signatures that explain various aspects of sensorimotor control, to assist the development of personalized rehabilitation that targets the specific brain networks responsible for the individuals' distinct sensorimotor deficits.
手部感觉运动功能障碍通常是由中风引起的，限制了患者进行日常活动的能力。中风幸存者的感觉运动功能障碍存在异质性。先前的研究表明，手部缺陷的一个原因是神经连接的改变。然而，神经连接与特定的感觉运动控制方面之间的关系很少被探索。了解这些关系对于制定个性化的康复策略以改善个体患者的特定感觉运动缺陷和康复结果非常重要。在这里，我们假设慢性中风幸存者的特定感觉运动控制方面将与不同的神经连接相关。12 名慢性中风幸存者在进行握力和放松任务时采集 EEG。从握力控制中提取了四个方面的手感觉运动控制，包括反应时间、放松时间、力大小控制和力方向控制。在握力准备和执行期间，计算了双侧感觉运动区域的 EEG 源连接在α和β频带中的情况。四个手部握力测量值中的每一个都与一个独特的连接测量值显著相关。这些结果支持进一步研究解释感觉运动控制各个方面的功能神经连接特征，以协助制定针对个体特定感觉运动缺陷的特定大脑网络的个性化康复。
