Transcranial magnetic stimulus & virtual reality training in neurorehabilitation

New Jersey Institute Of Technology, Newark NJ

Investigators

Abstract

The motor and neurological consequences of stroke are a major health concern in the United States, affecting almost 800,000 people per year. The intricacy of neuromotor control required for hand function as well as the variation in recovery of manipulative abilities post-stroke, makes rehabilitation of the upper extremities, especially the hand, extremely challenging. The goal of this project is to expand and build on an ongoing multidisciplinary investigation of targeted therapeutic interventions that facilitate rehabilitation and motor recovery through plasticity- mediated therapies. It will augment several aspects of the therapeutic interventions that utilize virtual reality (VR) technology interfaced with arm/hand robotics to provide repetitive and intensive sensorimotor training needed to promote neuroplasticity and functional motor recovery after stroke. The major means of effecting this augmentation are 1) Expanding the existing VR games library to include games that require coordinated bilateral movement of the upper extremities, 2) optimizing the efficacy of these interventions via adaptive algorithms that manipulate task parameters or performance targets 3) The addition of kinetic measurements of standardized real-world object manipulation to examine the transfer of skills acquired in VR, 4) investigating whether the simultaneous excitation of motor cortical areas by Transcranial magnetic stimulation time-locked to the initiation of voluntary motor actions will strengthen long term potentiation and synaptic efficiency of the neural networks associated with upper extremity movements and 5) if this strengthening will further improve functional motor outcomes resulting from VR training.