The Reaching Phase of Feeding and Self-Care Actions Optimizes Action Observation Effects in Chronic Stroke Subjects

 Your hospital should have thousands of hours of action observation videos, assuming they are competent. But no, they've been incompetent for 9 years,

• action observation (121 posts to January 2013)

The Reaching Phase of Feeding and Self-Care Actions Optimizes Action Observation Effects in Chronic Stroke Subjects

Marco Franceschini, MD, Marco Ottaviani, MSc https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6037-2960 marco.ottaviani@sanraffaele.it, […], Paola Romano, MSc, Michela Goffredo, PhD https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2651-8479, Sanaz Pournajaf, MSc, DPT https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8749-2236, Margherita Lofrumento, MSc, Stefania Proietti, MSc, Irma Sterpi, PhD, Enrica Tricomi, MSc, Peppino Tropea, PhD https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8238-9619, Massimo Corbo, MD, Luciano Fadiga, MD, PhD, and Francesco Infarinato, PhD, +10 -10View all authors and affiliations

Volume 36, Issue 9

https://doi.org/10.1177/15459683221110884

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Abstract

Background

The Action Observation Therapy (AOT) is a well-established post-stroke rehabilitation treatment based on the theoretical framework of the Mirror Neuron System (MNS) activation. However, AOT protocols are still heterogeneous in terms of video contents of observed actions.

Objective

The aim of this study was to analyze electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings in stroke patients during the observation of different videos of task-specific upper limb movements, and to define which category of actions can elicit a stronger cortical activation in the observer’s brain.

Methods

Signals were analyzed from 19 chronic stroke subjects observing customized videos that represented 3 different categories of upper limb actions: Finalized Actions, Non-Finalized Actions, and Control Videos. The Event-Related Desynchronization in the µ and β bands was chosen to identify the involvement of the cerebral cortex: the area of the normalized power spectral density was calculated for each category and, deepening, for the reaching and completion sub-phases of Finalized Actions. For descriptive purposes, the time course of averaged signal power was described. The Kruskal–Wallis test (P < .05) was applied.

Results

The analysis showed a greater desynchronization when subjects observed Finalized Actions with respect to Non-Finalized in all recorded areas; Control videos provoked a synchronization in the same areas and frequency bands. The reaching phase of feeding and self-care actions evoked a greater suppression both in µ and β bands.

Conclusions

The observation of finalized arm movements seems to elicit the strongest activation of the MNS in chronic stroke patients. This finding may help the clinicians to design future AOT-based stroke rehabilitation protocols.

Clinical Trial Registration:

Clinical Trial Registration—URL: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT04047134.