Affiliations: [a] Department of Physical Therapy, College of Health Science, Catholic University of Daegu, Daegu, Republic of Korea | [b] Department of Physical Therapy, Yeungnam College of Science and Technology, Taegu, Republic of Korea | [c] Department of Rehabilitation Science, Graduate School of Rehabilitation Science, Daegu University, Daegu, Republic of Korea | [d] Division of Clinical Psychology, Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Yeungnam University, Daegu, Republic of Korea | [e] Department of Physical Therapy, GangNeung YeongDong College, Republic of Korea | [f] Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, College of Medicine, Yeungnam University, Republic of Korea | [g] Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, School of Medicine Yeungnam University, Daegu, Republic of Korea
Correspondence:
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Address for correspondence: Sung Ho Jang, MD, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, College of Medicine, Yeungnam University. 317-1, Daemyungdong, Namgu, Daegu, 705-717, Republic of Korea. Tel.: +82 53 62 3269; Fax: +82 53 625 3508; E-mail: strokerehab@hanmail.net
Abstract: The aim of this study was to compare the areas of brain activation between complex and simple exercises in a unimanual hand and to assess the possibility of an exercise task for paretic hands following stroke. The subjects included 11 healthy right-handed volunteers. The complex exercise was a wooden ball rotation task with the unimanual hand and the simple exercise was a hand grasp task performed during a functional MRI scan. Stronger activation of the left primary sensorimotor cortex, the left premotor area, and the ipsilateral cerebellum emerged when the complex movement was performed. Ipsilateral activity was located in the primary sensory cortex and premotor area, and contralateral activity was shown in the left cerebellum. These results suggest that a unimanual ball rotation task may be appropriate for rehabilitation of a movable paretic hand in an early stage of stroke recovery, which should provide motor and sensory input using external stimuli, while the simple motor task may appropriate in a compensatory stage, and should inhibit the ipsilateral activity due to maladaptive plasticity.
