Artikel
Size of cortical motor area representation in accordance to sports- or musical- activity measured in patients planned for tumor or cavernoma- resection in eloquent brain areas using nTMS
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Veröffentlicht: | 8. Juni 2016 |
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Gliederung
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Background: Brain plasticity and remodeling are the reasons for successful rehabilitation after stroke, tumor operations or other brain tissue destructive disorders.
Objective: This study was aimed to investigate whether physical training leads to a greater representation of one or more extremities in the cortex.
Methods: 45 patients were examined with preoperative navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation (nTMS) between September 2012 and April 2016. All patients were planned for operation in eloquent brain areas. Independent of lesion location all extremities were examined separately in each patient. All participants filled out a questionnaire addressing their sports or musical activity and their profession. The data was statistically analyzed.
Results: Patients who were active in music at the present time or had played an instrument during childhood had a greater representation of the right hand (Spearman rank correlation: Spearman r=0.4484, two-tailed p-value=0.0023). Cortical representation of the right leg was significantly larger in patients who do sports compared to others (Spearman rank correlation: spearman r=0.50004, two-tailed p-value=0.0005). Physical activity in brain development seems to enlarge the specific brain area, ongoing training extends the cortical motor region even more. We could not identify correlation between right- or left-handedness and size of hand- or leg-area. Age or profession did not have impact on motor area sizes or the resting motor threshold.
Conclusions: Cortical plasticity can actively be influenced by repetitive physical training. Navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation enables accurate volumetric measurements of cortical areas of all extremities. Brain tissue reorganization and exact stimulation location are good requirements for therapeutic strategies.