NCT03530358

MOdularity for SEnsory Motor Control

MOdularity for SEnsory Motor Control: Implications of Muscle Synergies in Motor Recovery After Stroke

• Status: Unknown
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 132 (estimated)
• Sponsor: IRCCS San Camillo, Venezia, Italy · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

For this project the investigators ask, how the activation and organization of muscle synergies may be disrupted by brain lesions, and whether it is possible to modify synergy activations by means of specific therapies. Will be investigated whether there is a relationship between post-stroke cortical plasticity and changes in synergy activations due to a therapy.

Detailed description

It has been widely recognized that neurorehabilitation can facilitate recovery of motor function after stroke. There has been increasing evidence suggesting that the execution of voluntary movement relies critically on the functional integration of the motor areas and the spinal circuitries. More precisely, it was suggested that the central nervous system may generate neural motor commands through a linear combination of spinal modules, each of which activates a group of muscles as a single unit (muscle synergy). The investigators hypothesize that descending motor cortical signals generate movements by combining and activating muscle synergies. With this background, the goal is to further improve the efficacy of rehabilitation utilizing knowledge on modular motor control. The investigators also seek to provide a better understanding of the links between brain activations and movements. The project MO-SE has three aims, one primary and two secondary. The main primary aim is to test whether the use of virtual reality rehabilitation based therapies are superior in terms of clinical efficacy to conventional therapies (randomized clinica trial, RCT). The other two secondary aims of the project will be accomplished with further instrumental analysis in sub-samples of the group of patients enrolled for the RCT.

Conditions

• Stroke, Ischemic
• Upper Limb Injury
• Rehabilitation

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
DEVICE	Technology-aided rehabilitation	VRRS involves performing different kinds of motor tasks with the patient holding a real manipulable object in their hands while interacting with a virtual scenario. "Braccio di Ferro" task consists in center-out reaching movements and return. The subject is required to start from a central target, reach one of five peripheral targets arranged on a semi-circle with a 20 cm radius and then return to the central target.
BEHAVIORAL	Conventional rehabilitation	The patients will be asked to perform a wide range of exercises, including: shoulder flexion-extension, abduction-adduction, internal-external rotation, circumduction, elbow flexion-extension, forearm pronation-supination, hand-digit motion. Standardized instructions and modalities will be followed when providing exercises to the patients in order to control for any variability in leading the therapy session due to the therapist.

Timeline

• Start date: 2014-12-01
• Primary completion: 2018-12-01
• Completion: 2022-12-01
• First posted: 2018-05-21
• Last updated: 2022-06-08

Locations

2 sites across 1 country: Italy