Deans' stroke musings: Intermittent theta burst stimulation modulates mirror visual feedback-induced rhythm suppression for hemiparetic upper extremity recovery after stroke

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.

Saturday, July 18, 2026

Intermittent theta burst stimulation modulates mirror visual feedback-induced rhythm suppression for hemiparetic upper extremity recovery after stroke

Who cares? Did it get survivors closer to 100% recovery? That is the only goal in stroke and should be the only measurement for stroke research!

Intermittent theta burst stimulation modulates mirror visual feedback-induced rhythm suppression for hemiparetic upper extremity recovery after stroke

We are providing an unedited version of this manuscript to give early access to its findings. Before final publication, the manuscript will undergo further editing. Please note there may be errors present which affect the content, and all legal disclaimers apply.

Abstract

Objective

Theta burst stimulation (TBS) and mirror visual feedback (MVF) reduce interhemispheric asymmetry in both hemispheres, which leads to motor recovery.(But did it deliver recovery?) This study aimed to investigate the modulatory effects of intermittent TBS (iTBS) with MVF in mirror therapy (MT) on hemiparetic upper extremity motor recovery and neurophysiological outcomes in patients with stroke.

Methods

We designed a randomized controlled trial with three parallel groups: (1) iTBS with MT; (2) sham iTBS with MT; and (3) iTBS with sham MT. Fifteen out of the included 36 patients with chronic stroke from these three groups respectively in the randomized trial, participated in the EEG evaluation to investigate MVF-induced sensorimotor event-related desynchronization (ERD) during mirror view and direct view conditions pre/post training.

Results

Patients who received iTBS with MT or sham MT demonstrated greater improvements(But did it deliver recovery?)in the Fugl-Meyer Assessment Upper Extremity distal sub-scores, in contrast to those who received sham iTBS with MT, whereas iTBS with MT yielded a greater improvement(But did it deliver recovery?)than the sham iTBS with MT among patients with lower upper extremity functioning. The EEG findings showed that iTBS with MT, but not the other two protocols, enhanced the beta ERD over the ipsilesional sensorimotor area.

Conclusion

iTBS alone but not about the combination with MT appears to prime the ipsilesional motor cortex to be more receptive to MVF for motor recovery. The neurophysiological mechanisms of different brain stimulation protocols combined with MT with ERD neural substrates for post-stroke recovery can be further studied.