Can mental practice adjunct in the recovery of motor function in the upper limbs after stroke? A systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Studies indicate that mental practice can be an adjuvant rehabilitation, improving motor functions. AIM: To synthesize the evidence on the intervention with the mental practice for the rehabilitation of the upper limb after stroke in the context of a dependent task. METHODS: The review was registered on the PROSPERO with protocol number: CRD42020166624. We searched the PubMed, Medline, Embase, Central, PEDro, and Web of Science from randomized clinical trials from 1975 to 2022. A literature review was conducted with 13 studies that synthesized findings on mental practice such as adjuvant rehabilitation in the recovery of the upper limb after stroke based on Fugl-Meyer Assessment (FMA) Motor and action research arm test (ARAT) scores. RESULTS: The sample size was 232 were part of the intervention group and 180 of the control group. The findings no showed results in favor of mental practice after stroke accordingly to ARAT and FMA Motor scores (P > 0.05). CONCLUSION: Current evidence does not support the use of the mental practice to increase the recovery of the upper limb after stroke, although the evidence is conflicting for some aspects of the technique.

Open monitoring meditation alters the EEG gamma coherence in experts meditators: The expert practice exhibit greater right intra-hemispheric functional coupling.

AIM: This study investigated the differences in frontoparietal EEG gamma coherence between expert meditators (EM) and naïve meditators (NM). MATERIAL AND METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study with a sample of twenty-one healthy adults divided under two groups (experts meditators vs. naive-meditators), with analyzing the intra-hemispheric coherence of frontoparietal gamma oscillations by electroencephalography during the study steps: EEG resting-state 1, during the open presence meditation practice, and EEG resting-state 2. RESULTS: The findings demonstrated greater frontoparietal EEG coherence in gamma for experts meditators in the Fp1-P3, F4-P4, F8-P4 electrode pairs during rest 1 and rest 2 (p ≤ 0.0083). In addition, we evidenced differences in the frontoparietal EEG coherence for expert meditators in F4-P4, F8-P4 during the meditation (p ≤ 0.0083). CONCLUSION: Our results can support evidence that the connectivity of the right frontoparietal network acts as a biomarker of the enhanced Open monitoring meditation training.