Complex network changes during a virtual reality rehabilitation protocol following stroke: a case study

Author(s):Show less -

Feitosa, J. A. ; Stefano Filho, C. A. ; Casseb, R. F. ; Camargo, A. ; Martins, B. S. G. ; Ballester, B. R. ; Omedas, P. ; Verschure, P. ; Oberg, T. D. ; Min, L. L. ; Castellano, G. ; IEEE

• Document type: Journal article
• Source: 2019 9TH INTERNATIONAL IEEE/EMBS CONFERENCE ON NEURAL ENGINEERING (NER); v. N/A, p. 4-pg., 2019-01-01.

Abstract

Stroke is one of the main causes of disabilities caused by injuries to the human central nervous system, yielding a wide range of mild to severe impairments that can compromise sensorimotor and cognitive functions. Although rehabilitation protocols may improve function of stroke survivors, patients often reach plateaus while undergoing therapy. Recently, virtual reality (VR) technologies have been paired with traditional rehabilitation aiming to improve function recovery after stroke. Aiming to better understand structural brain changes due to VR rehabilitation protocols, we modeled the brain as a graph and extracted three measures representing the network's topology: degree, clustering coefficient and betweenness centrality (BC). In this single case study, our results indicate that all metrics increased on the ipsilesional hemisphere, while remaining about the same at the contralesional site. Particularly, the number of functional connections increased in the lesion area overtime. In addition, the BC displayed the highest variations, and in brain regions related to the patient's cognitive and motor impairments; hence, we argue that this measure could be regarded as an indicative for brain plasticity mechanisms. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 13/07559-3 - BRAINN - The Brazilian Institute of Neuroscience and Neurotechnology
• Grantee: Fernando Cendes
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Research, Innovation and Dissemination Centers - RIDC