Neurophysiologic Correlates of Post-stroke Mood and Emotional Control

Objective: Emotional disturbance is a common complication of stroke significantly affecting functional recovery and quality of life. Identifying relevant neurophysiologic markers associated with post-stroke emotional disturbance may lead to a better understanding of this disabling condition, guiding the diagnosis, development of new interventions and the assessments of treatment response. Methods: Thirty-five subjects with chronic stroke were enrolled in this study. The emotion sub-domain of Stroke Impact Scale (SIS-Emotion) was used to assess post-stroke mood and emotional control. The relation between SIS-Emotion and neurophysiologic measures was assessed by using covariance mapping and univariate linear regression. Multivariate analyses were conducted to identify and adjust for potential confounders. Neurophysiologic measures included power asymmetry and coherence assessed by electroencephalography (EEG); and motor threshold, intracortical inhibition (ICI) and intracortical facilitation (ICF) measured by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Results: Lower scores on SIS-Emotion was associated with (1) frontal EEG power asymmetry in alpha and beta bands, (2) central EEG power asymmetry in alpha and theta bands, and (3) lower inter-hemispheric coherence over frontal and central areas in alpha band. SIS-Emotion also correlated with higher ICF and MT in the unlesioned hemisphere as measured by TMS. Conclusions: To our knowledge, this is the first study using EEG and TMS to index neurophysiologic changes associated with post-stroke mood and emotional control. Our results suggest that inter-hemispheric imbalance measured by EEG power and coherence, as well as an increased ICF in the unlesioned hemisphere measured by TMS might be relevant markers associated with post-stroke mood and emotional control which can guide future studies investigating new diagnostic and treatment modalities in stroke rehabilitation

VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL FORCES DURING CUTIING IN BASKETBALL UNDER DIFFERENT CONDITIONS

The purpose of this study is to evaluate ground reaction force responses in professional basketball athletes while executing this sport's typical cutting maneuver with and without ankle bracing: taping, aircast-type orthosis and basketball shoes. Eight athletes were dynamically analyzed during a basketball cutting maneuver with a force platform. We collected vertical and medial-lateral forces under these three conditions and analyzed force peaks of foot contact with the ground and propulsion and growth gradient for these forces. Results show that bracing did not significantly change Fymax1 and GCFymax1; significantly reduced Fymax2 and GG Fymax2. With respect to the medial-lateral component, there were no significant differences in relation to force magnitudes between the three study conditions. However, GG Fzmax1 was significantly greater for the sport shoe condition than for the taping condition. Bracing decreased ground reaction force at some instances, but increased in others

Health-related quality of life and functionality in primary caregiver of surviving pediatric COVID-19

ObjectivesTo prospectively assess health-related quality of life (HRQoL), global functionality, and disability in primary caregivers of surviving children and adolescents after COVID-19.MethodsA longitudinal observational study was carried out on primary caregivers of surviving pediatric post-COVID-19 patients (n = 51) and subjects without COVID-19 (n = 60). EuroQol five-dimension five-level questionnaire (EQ-5D-5L) and 12-question WHO Disability Assessment Schedule 2.0 (WHODAS 2.0) were answered for both groups. The univariate regression analysis was carried out using SPSS (v 20) and significance was established at 5%.ResultsThe median duration between COVID-19 diagnosis in children and adolescents and longitudinal follow-up visits was 4.4 months (0.8–10.7). The median age of children and adolescents caregivers with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 was similar to primary caregivers of subjects without laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 [43.2 (31.6–60.9) vs. 41.5 (21.6–54.8) years, p = 0.08], as well as similar female sex (p = 1.00), level of schooling (p = 0.11), social assistance program (p = 0.28), family income/month U$ (p = 0.25) and the number of household’s members in the residence (p = 0.68). The frequency of slight to extreme problems (level ≥ 2) of the pain/discomfort domain according to EQ-5D-5L score was significantly higher in the former group [74% vs. 52.5%, p = 0.03, OR = 2.57 (1.14–5.96)]. The frequency of disability according to WHODAS 2.0 total score was similar to those without disability and unknown (p = 0.79); however, with a very high disability in both groups (72.5% and 78.3%). Further analysis of primary caregivers of children and adolescents with post-COVID-19 condition (PCC) [n = 12/51 (23%)] compared to those without PCC [n = 39/51(77%)] revealed no differences between demographic data, EQ-5D-5L and WHODAS 2.0 scores in both groups (p > 0.05).ConclusionWe longitudinally demonstrated that pain/discomfort were predominantly reported in approximately 75% of primary caregiver of COVID-19 patients, with high disability in approximately three-quarters of both caregiver groups. These data emphasized the prospective and systematic caregiver burden evaluation relevance of pediatric COVID-19

The Role of Primary Motor Cortex as a Marker for and Modulator of Pain Control and Emotional-Affective Processing

The sensory and motor cortical homunculi proposed by Walter Penfield were a major landmark for the anatomical mapping of the brain. More than 60 years after, the development of new tools to investigate brain function non-invasively has increased our knowledge about the structure and functions of the primary motor Cortex (M1) beyond motor control in both humans and animals. This book highlights the role of the motor cortex that goes way beyond motor functioning. We were interested in both theoretical and empirical contributions related to electrophysiological, pharmacological, neuroimaging, and neuromodulatory studies exploring the role of M1 on non-motor functions, such as pain, abnormal neuroplasticity that may lead to chronic pain conditions; or the relationship between M1 and mental imagery or emotion. This book is comprised of 15 articles published in this edited volume as a research topic collection in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience titled “The Role of Primary Motor Cortex as a Marker and Modulator of Pain Control and Emotional-Affective Processing.

Knowledge Discovery strategy over patient performance data towards the extraction of hemiparesis-inherent features: A case study

Aiming to perform an extraction of features which are strongly related to hemiparesis, this work describes a case study involving the efforts of patients in upper-limb rehabilitation, diagnosed with such pathology. Expressed as data (kinematic and dynamic measures), patients' performance were sensed and stored by a single InMotion Arm robotic device for further analysis. It was applied a Knowledge Discovery roadmap over collected data in order to preprocess, transform and perform data mining through machine learning methods. Our efforts culminated in a pattern classification with the abilty to distinguish hemiparetic sides with an accuracy rate of 94%, having 8 features of rehabilitation performance feeding the input. Interpreting the obtained feature structure, it was observed that force-related attributes are more significant to the composition of the extracted pattern

Editorial: The role of primary motor cortex as a marker and modulator of pain control and emotional-affective processing

[Excerpt] In the 1940–50’s Wilder Penfield and colleagues applied cortical electrical stimulation to patients undergoing epilepsy surgery to define what has become one of the landmarks on neuroscience: a map of the anatomical divisions of the body, divided in two cortical homunculi: sensory and motor (Penfield and Boldrey, 1937). Ever since, the development of new tools to investigate brain function non-invasively increased knowledge about the structure and functions of the primary motor Cortex (M1) beyond motor control in both humans and animals. For instance, the role of M1 in visuomotor transformations, mental imagery, or mental rotation has been shown in studies dating more than 30 years ago (Georgopoulos and Pellizzer, 1995; Kosslyn et al., 1998). Also, M1 seems to be activated during memory retrieval of sensory information or finger tapping sequences after a short delay (Kaas et al., 2007), suggesting the M1 involvement with memory processes; as well as involved in language processing of action related words (de Lafuente and Romo, 2004; Hauk et al., 2004; Pulvermuller, 2005 for review). Furthermore, the involvement of the M1 region in higher cognitive functions has also been demonstrated in emotional processing. There seems to be a correlation between sensorimotor activation and empathy (Lamm et al., 2007), as well as relationship between sensorimotor activation and emotional processing in silent reading of emotionally laden words (Papeo et al., 2012). Moreover, M1 seems to be asymmetrically modulated by here emotionally laden sounds, with unpleasant sounds resulting in higher facilitation od motor evoked potentials in the left hemisphere, whereas pleasant sounds resulted in higher excitability in the right side (Komeilipoor et al., 2013). [...]JL and SC are supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and European Union (FSE-POPH) with individual awards SFRH/BPD/86027/2012) and (IF/00091/2015). JL, SC are members of CIPSi, supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education through national funds and co-financed by FEDER through COMPETE2020 under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007653); and also through the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology PTDC/MHC-PCN/3950/2014. FF is funded by the following NIH grants: R21HD079048, R01HD082302, 1R44NS080632-01, 1R44AT008637, HD069776