Neurophysiological Characterization of Subacute Stroke Patients: A Longitudinal Study

作者：Lamola Giuseppe; Fanciullacci Chiara; Sgherri Giada; Bertolucci Federica; Panarese Alessandro; Micera Silvestro; Rossi Bruno; Chisari Carmelo^*

来源：Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 2016, 10: 574.

DOI：10.3389/fnhum.2016.00574

• stroke
• functional recovery
• cortical excitability
• motor evoked potentials
• silent period
• intracortical inhibition
• unaffected hemisphere
• clinical neurophysiology

Various degrees of neural reorganization may occur in affected and unaffected hemispheres in the early phase after stroke and several months later. Recent literature suggests to apply a stratification based on lesion location and to consider patients with cortico-subcortical and subcortical strokes separately: different lesion location may also influence therapeutic response. In this study we used a longitudinal approach to perform TMS assessment (Motor Evoked Potentials, MEP, and Silent Period, SP) and clinical evaluations (Barthel Index, Fugl-Meyer Assessment for upper limb motor function and Wolf Motor Function Test) in 10 cortical-subcortical and 10 subcortical ischemic stroke patients. Evaluations were performed in a window between 10 and 45 days (t0) and at 3 months after the acute event (t1). Our main finding is that 3 months after the acute event patients affected by subcortical stroke presented a reduction in contralateral SP duration in the unaffected hemisphere: this trend is related to clinical improvement of upper limb motor function. In conclusion, SP proved to be a valid parameter to characterize cortical reorganization patterns in stroke survivors and provided useful information about motor recovery within 3 months in subcortical patients.

• 出版日期2016-11-16