Shutting down sensorimotor interferences after stroke: A proof-of-principle SMR neurofeedback study

Shutting down sensorimotor interferences after stroke: A proof-of-principle SMR neurofeedback study

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Introduction: Neurofeedback training aims at learning self-regulation of brain activity underlying cognitive, emotional or physiological functions.Despite of promising investigations on neurofeedback as a tool for cognitive rehabilitation in neurological diseases, such as after stroke, there is still a lack of research on feasibility and efficiency of neurofeedback in this field.Methods: The present study aimed at investigating behavioral and electrophysiological effects of 10 sessions of sensorimotor rhythm (SMR) neurofeedback in a 74-year-old stroke patient (UG20).Based on previous results in healthy young participants, we hypothesized that SMR neurofeedback leads to a decrease in sensorimotor interferences and improved stimulus processing, read more reflected by changes in event-related potentials and electrophysiological coherence.

To assess whether UG20 benefited from the training as much as healthy persons of a similar age, a healthy control group of N = 10 elderly persons was trained as well.Before and after neurofeedback training, participants took part in a multichannel EEG measurement conducted during a nonverbal and a verbal learning task.Results: Both UG20 and the healthy controls were able to regulate their SMR activity during neurofeedback training.Moreover, in a nonverbal learning task, changes in event-related potentials and coherence were observed after training: UG20 showed a better performance in the nonverbal learning task and a higher P3 amplitude after training than before, and coherence between central and parietal electrodes decreased after training.

The control group also showed a behavioral improvement in the nonverbal learning task and tendencies for higher P3 amplitudes and decreased central-parietal coherence after training.Single-case analyses indicated that the changes observed in UG20 were not smaller than click here the changes in healthy controls.Conclusions: Neurofeedback can be successfully applied in a stroke patient and in healthy elderly persons.We suggest that SMR neurofeedback leads to a shutting-down of sensorimotor interferences which benefits semantic encoding and retrieval.