Affiliation:
1. PET Center, Huashan Hospital, and
2. Department of Hand Surgery,
3. State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology, Fudan University, Shanghai, People's Republic of China
Abstract
Object
Peripheral nerve injury in a limb usually causes intrahemispheric functional reorganization of the contralateral motor cortex. Recently, evidence has been emerging for significant interhemispheric cortical plasticity in humans, mostly from studies of direct cortical damage. However, in this study, a long-range interhemispheric plasticity was demonstrated in adults with brachial plexus avulsion injury (BPAI) who had received a contralateral cervical nerve transfer, and this plasticity reversed the BPAI-induced intrahemispheric cortical reorganization.
Methods
In this study, 8 adult male patients with BPAI were studied using PET scanning.
Results
The results indicated that the right somatomotor cortices, which may contribute to the control of the injured limb before brachial plexus deafferentation, still played an important role when patients with BPAI tried to move their affected limbs, despite the fact that the contralateral C-7 nerve transfer had been performed and the peripheral output had changed dramatically. Such findings are consistent with the results of the authors' previous animal study.
Conclusions
The brain may try to restore the control of an injured limb to its original cortex area, and a complicated change of peripheral pathway also can induce long-range interhemispheric cortical reorganization in human motor cortex.
Publisher
Journal of Neurosurgery Publishing Group (JNSPG)
Subject
Genetics,Animal Science and Zoology
Cited by
32 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献