Functional recovery from chronic writer’s cramp by brain-computer interface rehabilitation: a case report

BMC Neuroscience

Junichi Ushiba³  Meigen Liu⁵  Masahiko Mukaino¹  Tetsuo Ota⁴  Yasunari Hashimoto² 

[1] Department of Rehabilitation Medicine I, School of Medicine, Fujita Health University, Aichi, Japan;Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Kitami Institute of Technology, Hokkaido, Japan;Department of Biosciences and Informatics, Faculty of Science and Technology, Keio University, Kanagawa, Japan;Asahikawa Medical University Hospital, Hokkaido, Japan;Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan

关键词: Cortico-muscular coherence;    Motor learning;    Upper extremity;    Neurofeedback;    Neurorehabilitation;   

Others  :  1091216
DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2202-15-103

 received in 2014-06-06, accepted in 2014-08-28,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

Dystonia is often currently treated with botulinum toxin injections to spastic muscles, or deep brain stimulation to the basal ganglia. In addition to these pharmacological or neurosurgical measures, a new noninvasive treatment concept, functional modulation using a brain-computer interface, was tested for feasibility. We recorded electroencephalograms (EEGs) over the bilateral sensorimotor cortex from a patient suffering from chronic writer’s cramp. The patient was asked to suppress an exaggerated beta frequency component in the EEG during hand extension.

Results

The patient completed biweekly one-hour training for 5 months without any adverse effects. Significant decrease of the beta frequency component during handwriting was confirmed, and was associated with clear functional improvement.

Conclusion

The current pilot study suggests that a brain-computer Interface can give explicit feedback of ongoing cortical excitability to patients with dystonia and allow them to suppress exaggerated neural activity, resulting in functional recovery.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Hashimoto et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

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