Effects of cathodic transcranial direct current stimulation on motor function of upper limbs and fingers in patients with right brain injury / 中国康复理论与实践

ObjectiveTo investigate the effects of cathodic transcranial direct current stimulation (ctDCS) on upper limb and finger dysfunction after right brain injury (RBI). MethodsFrom October, 2020 to May, 2022, 40 RBI patients in Beijing Bo'ai Hospital were randomly divided into control group and experimental group, with 20 patients in each group. All the patients accepted conventional drug treatment, conventional rehabilitation treatment and functional occupational therapy. The cathode electrode was placed in the M1 area of the uninjured side of brain, then the control group received sham stimulation and the experimental group received stimulation, for four weeks. They were assessed with Fugl-Meyer Assessment-Upper Extremities (FMA-UE) and -Finger, and the modified Barthel Index (MBI) before and after treatment. ResultsAfter treatment, the scores of FMA-UE, FMA-Finger and MBI improved in the two groups (t > 5.627, P < 0.001), and improved more in the experimental group than in the control group (t > 2.161, P < 0.05). ConclusionctDCS can effectively improve the motor function of upper limbs and fingers of RBI patients, and improve the ability of activities of daily living.

Functional Connectivities in Right Hemisphere for Post-stroke Aphasia: Based on Dual Stream Model / 中国康复理论与实践

Objective:To study the effect of right brain language network in post-stroke aphasia (PSA) patients with left hemisphere injury. Methods:From December, 2018 to June, 2019, twelve PSA patients with left hemisphere injury, and twelve matched healthy controls were recruited to accept rest-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (f-MRI) scan, and analyzed the characteristics of right brain function network with Dual Stream model. Results:There were two patients lost. Compared with the controls, for dorsolateral lingual pathway, the functional connections increased from superior marginal gyrus to middle frontal gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus of trigone in the patients, while those decreased from posterior central gyrus to inferior frontal gyrus of insula. For ventral lingual pathway, the functional connection increased from angular gyrus to orbital inferior frontal gyrus. For ventral and dorsolateral double-pathway, the functional connections increased from temporal lobe to lenticular pallidum and angular gyrus, from caudate nucleus to inferior frontal gyrus of insula, from lenticular putamen nucleus to middle frontal gyrus and trigonometry, while it decreased from superior marginal gyrus and temporal lobe to inferior frontal gyrus of insula. There was a negative correlation between the functional connection from inferior frontal gyrus to lenticular putamen and repeating (r = -0.720, P < 0.05), between the functional connection from inferior frontal gyrus to the caudate nucleus to speaking and repeating (r < -0.696, P < 0.05). In terms of network index, there were significant differences between the patients and the controls in both local and global indexes for language key brain area in right brain (|t| > 2.143, P < 0.05). Conclusion:The functional network has reorganized in right hemisphere of PSA patients. However, the increase of connection between language critical cortex and subcortical nuclei may play a role in improvement of language function.

Avaliação da prosódia emocional em adultos com lesão de hemisfério direito / Emotional prosody assessment in adults with right brain damage

Uma lesão de hemisfério direito pode gerar alterações comunicativas, comprometendo habilidades dos processamentos discursivo, pragmático-inferencial, léxico-semântico e prosódico (nos níveis compreensivo e expressivo). Uma das sequelas que vem sendo estudadas é a disprosódia. No entanto, o conhecimento sobre os instrumentos de avaliação para seu diagnóstico ainda é restrito. Este artigo visa a apresentar uma revisão sistemática sobre os instrumentos de avaliação da prosódia emocional em estudos de pessoas com lesão de hemisfério direito. Fez-se uma busca de resumos nas bases SciELO, LILACS e PubMed, com as palavras-chave "hemisfério", "direito", "prosódia" e "emocional". Encontraram-se 14 estudos apenas na base PubMed. A maioria utiliza tarefas experimentais, com pouca frequência de testes padronizados, sendo que seis investigações tiveram a participação de um mesmo pesquisador. Ressalta-se o caráter relativamente recente e incipiente dos estudos internacionais sobre a avaliação de déficits prosódicos após lesão cerebral direita, havendo uma importante lacuna nacional nessa área de diagnóstico neuropsicológico.

A right hemisphere brain damage can cause communicative impairments, compromising skills in discursive, pragmatic-inferential, lexical-semantic, and prosodic (at the comprehensive and expressive levels) processing. One of the sequelae which has been studied is dysprosody. However , the knowledge of the assessment instruments for its diagnosis is yet uncertain. The aim of this article is to present a systematic review on the emotional prosody assessment instruments in studies of people with right hemisphere brain damage. Abstracts were searched for in SciELO, Lilacs and PubMed databases, using the keywords "right", "hemisphere", "emotional" and "prosody". 14 studies were found only in Medline database. Most of them use experimental tasks, with standardized tests being less frequent, and six investigations were conducted by the same researcher. The relatively recent and incipient nature of the international studies on the assessment of prosodic deficits after right hemisphere brain damage must be highlighted, as well as an important national gap in this field of neuropsychological diagnosis.

Unsymmetrical Response Features of Left and Right Brain to Signals from Left and Right Visual Fields at Different Cognitive Levels / 航天医学与医学工程

Objective To study the response characteristics of left and right brain to signals from left(LVF) and right(RVF) visual fields during cognitive activity. Method ERPs at 9 locations to LVF and RVF signals were compared in 23 normal subjects in 3 task conditions:looking forward only (VC); making switch response to target signals(T) only(SR); making switch response to T differentially(DR). Result (1)Significant difference in ERPs was found between that induced by LVF and RVF signals on left brain especially at frontal location(F5), which appeared as slow negative deflection induced by T and NT from RVF in SR and DR;(2) Condition-dependent unsymmetrical features between left and right brain were found: the slow potential at F5 was significantly more negative in T and contralateral spatial relation(i.e., left brain for RVF) but more positive in NT and ipsilateral relation than that at F6.Conclusion Signals with psychological meaning in RVF might cause more psychological load as suggested by the results obtained in this study.