Deans' stroke musings: Incredible mind-reading device could help stroke patients regain the use of their hands by strengthening the neurons in their brain

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, February 8, 2018

Incredible mind-reading device could help stroke patients regain the use of their hands by strengthening the neurons in their brain

Makes the assumption that your motor cortex is still viable for the needed movements. Mine is mostly dead. Not even tested in stroke survivors. Worthless.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5270797/Incredible-mind-reading-device-help-stroke-patients.html

Stroke is a leading cause of long-term disability in both the US and the UK
About half of all stroke survivors are left with restricted movement in one hand
A new tool can help patients using brain signals and a robotic exoskeleton
The device sends signals into the brain while moving a paralysed hand to restore connections between the two

By Harry Pettit For Mailonline

Published: 13:05 EST, 15 January 2018 | Updated: 13:37 EST, 15 January 2018

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An incredible mind-reading device could help sufferers of serious strokes regain the use of their hands.

Stroke is a leading cause of long-term disability in both the US and the UK, with about half of all survivors left with severely restricted movement in one hand.

A new machine sends signals into a patient's head while moving their paralysed hand with a robotic exoskeleton to strengthen lost connections between brain cells.

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An incredible mind-reading device could help sufferers of serious strokes regain the use of paralysed hands. The machine (pictured) sends signals into a patient's head while moving the affected hand to strengthen lost connections between brain cells

WHAT IS A STROKE?

A stroke is a brain attack similar to a heart attack, and is mostly caused by a blockage of a blood vessel to part of the brain.

The sooner a suspected stroke patient is seen by a doctor, a diagnosis made and treatment started, the greater the likelihood of recovery.

Stroke is a leading cause of disability in the UK, where there are more than 100,000 cases each year.

In the US, stroke is the number one cause of serious, long-term disability, with around 800,000 cases a year.

About half of all stroke survivors will never be able to use their affected hand for activities of daily living again.

Current therapy is based on muscular strength training via specialised rehabilitation and physiotherapy sessions.

The researchers, from the University of Tübingen in southwest Germany, say their device is a new way to strengthen brain networks damaged during a stroke.

Their new technique asks patients to imagine opening and closing their hand without making any movement.

The device detects electrical activity in the brain and causes the hand to open and close in response.

Experts also use a magnetic pulse to stimulate a part of the brain associated with hand movement during the treatment.

The treatment boosts the number of connections or 'pathways' between the brain and spinal cord, the researchers claim.

Lead researcher Professor Alireza Gharabaghi told MailOnline: 'This combined intervention recruits additional pathways from the brain to the hand which were not active before.'

To test if their system works, the team evaluated 27 participants - none of whom had suffered a stroke - as they used the device.

The strength of brain connections linked to hand movement were measured before and after the experiments via changes in muscle electrical pulses.

Stroke is a leading cause of disability in the UK, with about half of the country's 1.2 million stroke survivors left with severely restricted movement in one hand. Pictured is the rehabilitation machine used in the new study

HOW IT WORKS

The device strengthens brain connections lost during a stroke.

It promotes the building of new connections by asking users to imagine they are opening and closing their hand.

As they do this, the machine passively opens and closes their hand in time with signals sent out from their brain.

The therapy boosts brain plasticity and so promotes the natural rebuilding of damaged brain circuitry.

The team found that the strength of pulses sent from the brain to the hand increased after their therapy.

The researchers demonstrate that stimulating the hand area of the motor cortex at the same time, but not after, the robotic device initiated hand movement increased the strength of the neural signal.

This was most likely by harnessing the processing power of additional neurons in the spine, they said.

The signal decreased when participants were not required to imagine moving their hand.

'Delivering brain stimulation and robotic motor feedback simultaneously during rehabilitation may therefore be beneficial for patients who have lost voluntary muscle control,' the researchers wrote in their paper.