Brain stimulation may aid stroke recovery

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A new therapy that uses magnetic pulses to stimulate the brain help Stroke patients recover motor function, study suggests.

“These results are exciting because magnetic stimulation is a non-invasive, painless therapy that can be done while patients are awake,” Dr. Felipe Fregni from Harvard Medical School in Boston said.

The treatment, called repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), is applied to the unaffected brain hemisphere of Stroke patients. Stimulating the healthy side of the brain is believed to reduce activity there and promote increased activity in the stroke-damaged side of the brain.

With the treatment, a brief electrical current is passed through an insulated wire coil that is placed on the scalp creating a magnetic pulse that stimulates the outer part of the brain called the cortex.

Fregni and colleagues treated 10 patients who had experienced a stroke within the previous 12 months and who were relearning to use their affected hands. They underwent three stimulation sessions an hour apart.

A sham treatment was also given to patients, and six healthy control subjects underwent the same testing protocol, to ensure that changes in test performance could not be attributed to learning effects.

With stimulation, stroke patients improved by as much as 50 percent on some of the tests, such as a reaction time test, compared with sham treatment. The authors also observed improved results on the so-called Purdue Pegboard test results, with a significant increase in the number of correctly placed pegs.

Control subjects showed no changes in test performance over time.

Fregni pointed out that the improvements were temporary. “We believe that if we increase the number of sessions we can increase the duration and magnitude of the effect, so our next step will be to administer [stimulation] consecutively for 10 days” and then test motor function, he added.

SOURCE: Neurology, May 24, 2005.

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