Deans' stroke musings: Near-Infrared Spectroscopy based Neurofeedback Training increases Specific Motor Imagery Related Cortical Activation compared to Sham Feedback

Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Near-Infrared Spectroscopy based Neurofeedback Training increases Specific Motor Imagery Related Cortical Activation compared to Sham Feedback

No clue on this one, your doctor and therapists had better know what this means and use it to help you recover.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301051113001233

Abstract

In the present study we implemented a real-time feedback system based on multichannel near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). Prior studies indicated that NIRS-based neurofeedback can enhance motor imagery related cortical activation. To specify these prior results and to confirm the efficacy of NIRS based neurofeedback training, we examined changes in blood oxygenation level collected in eight NIRS neurofeedback training sessions. The study design differentiated between a feedback group (N = 9) that got real feedback about their own brain activity and a sham feedback group (N = 8) that saw a playback of another person's feedback recording. All participants were instructed to imagine a right hand movement to control the vertical position of a ball displayed on a computer screen. Real neurofeedback induced specific and focused brain activation over left motor areas. This focal brain activation became even more specific over the eight training sessions. In contrast, sham feedback led to diffuse brain activation patterns over the whole cortex. These findings indicate that NIRS-based real-time neurofeedback induces focused activation in specific brain areas which can be useful when training patients with focal brain lesions to increase activity of specific brain areas for rehabilitation purpose.