Deans' stroke musings: A single bout of aerobic exercise promotes motor cortical neuroplasticity

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.

Monday, March 18, 2013

A single bout of aerobic exercise promotes motor cortical neuroplasticity

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting that they are lower body exercising but checking on upper limb representation. I'm sure your doctor can tell you how to incorporate this into your stroke protocol.
http://jap.physiology.org/content/early/2013/03/04/japplphysiol.01378.2012.short

Abstract

Regular physical activity is associated with enhanced plasticity in the motor cortex but the effect of a single session of aerobic exercise on neuroplasticity is unknown. The aim of this study was to compare corticospinal excitability and plasticity in the upper limb cortical representation following a single session of lower limb cycling at either low or moderate intensity, or a control condition. We recruited 25 healthy adults to take part in three experimental sessions. Cortical excitability was examined using transcranial magnetic stimulation to elicit motor evoked potentials (MEPs) in the right first dorsal interosseus (FDI) muscle. Levels of serum brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and cortisol were also assessed. Following baseline testing, participants cycled on a stationary bike at a workload equivalent to 57% (low intensity, 30 mins) or 77% age-predicted maximal heart rate (moderate intensity, 15 minutes), or a seated control condition. Neuroplasticity within the primary motor cortex was examined using a continuous Theta Burst Stimulation (cTBS) paradigm. We found that exercise did not alter cortical excitability. Following cTBS, there was a transient inhibition of FDI MEPs during control and low intensity conditions but this was only significantly different following the low intensity state. Moderate intensity exercise alone increased serum cortisol levels, but BDNF levels did not increase across any condition. In summary, low intensity cycling promoted the neuroplastic response to cTBS within the motor cortex of healthy adults. These findings suggest that light exercise has the potential to enhance the effectiveness of motor learning or recovery following brain damage.