Motor imagery training improves precision of an upper limb movement in patients with hemiparesis

How many decades before your stroke department has thousands of hours of guided imagery for you to think about? I'll guess 50 years. Now if they would compare motor imagery to action observation we would have something useful for survivors. Don't do this on your own, think how dangerous it is to think about your movements.
http://iospress.metapress.com/content/t67557518727350w/

Luzia Grabherr^{1, 2}, Corinne Jola³, Gilberto Berra⁴, Robert Theiler⁴, Fred W. Mast¹

¹Department of Psychology, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
²School of Health Sciences, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia
³Division of Social and Health Sciences - Psychology, Abertay University, Dundee, UK
⁴Department of Rheumatology, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Triemli City Hospital, Zurich, Switzerland

Abstract

BACKGROUND: In healthy participants, beneficial effects of motor imagery training on movement execution have been shown for precision, strength, and speed. In the clinical context, it is still debated whether motor imagery provides an effective rehabilitation technique in patients with motor deficits. OBJECTIVE: To compare the effectiveness of two different types of movement training: motor imagery vs. motor execution. METHODS: Twenty-five patients with hemiparesis were assigned to one of two training groups: the imagery or the execution-training group. Both groups completed a baseline test before they received six training sessions, each of which was followed by a test session. Using a novel and precisely quantifiable test, we assessed how accurately patients performed an upper limb movement. RESULTS: Both training groups improved performance over the six test sessions but the improvement was significantly larger in the imagery group. That is, the imagery group was able to perform more precise movements than the execution group after the sixth training session while there was no difference at the beginning of the training. CONCLUSIONS: The results provide evidence for the benefit of motor imagery training in patients with hemiparesis and thus suggest the integration of cognitive training in conventional physiotherapy practice.

Brown bag lecture features - stroke....what you should know - Estes Park,CO

Don't let them focus only on what they want to talk about. Ask difficult questions.
http://www.eptrail.com/datebook/ci_23157082/brown-bag-lecture-features-stroke-what-you-should
1. What percentage of patients fully recover?
2. Why is it so low?
3. Are you using hypothermia?
4. What are you doing to stop the neuronal cascade of death in the first week.
5. Why aren't you doing anything?
6. Nothing is available is not a valid answer.
Lots of other questions in here.
http://oc1dean.blogspot.com/2010/08/what-my-doctor-should-have-told-me.html
 http://www.oc1dean.blogspot.com/2011/02/marijuana-and-stroke-rehab.html
http://oc1dean.blogspot.com/2013/03/what-i-am-going-to-insist-i-get-after.html
http://oc1dean.blogspot.com/2010/09/stroke-research-questions.html

10 Unsolved Mysteries Of The Brain

Another article from Discover magazine. I added mine to the end.
http://discovermagazine.com/2007/aug/unsolved-brain-mysteries/article_view?b_start:int=2&-C=
1. How is information coded in neural activity?



2. How are memories stored and retrieved?

3. What does the baseline activity in the brain represent?

4. How do brains simulate the future?



5. What are emotions?



6. What is intelligence

7. How is time represented in the brain?

8. Why do brains sleep and dream?


9. How do the specialized systems of the brain integrate with one another?


10. What is consciousness?

11. How do neurons request  nearby neurons to help them with a task?

12. Why would a neuron give up its known task to take on something new?

Submission to xPrize - stroke rehab

They create wonderful competitions, from tricorder to private space travel.
http://www.xprize.org/
My suggestion is:
15 million persons a year suffer a stroke, 10 million live with disabilities.  How exactly does neuroplasticity work? We know it works because we have seen from brain scans that heavily used areas of the brain expand to the surrounding areas.
The answer to this question could help millions recover.
How does a neuron signal to its neighbor that it needs help? And why would a neuron drop what it currently knows to take on new functionality? This should be fairly easy to figure out, you can use nanowires to listen in on single neurons or lay a grid across the cortex to listen in.
I see two possibilities, do you believe in good or evil neurons?
1. One neuron calls for help to neighboring neurons and they altruistically go to help.
2. One neuron sends out signals that wipe functionality from neighboring neurons and instructs them to copy the sending message.
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I sent the same request to the  Allen Institute for Brain Science with a negative reply.
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Thank you for your inquiry and for writing to us. While we don't sponsor
"X prize" like competitions, we appreciate hearing from people regarding
the issues of TBI, the more we hear the more relevant and pressing this
issue becomes.

The research we do at the Allen Institute is designed to accelerate
knowledge in the field of neuroplasticity which will in turn nurture the
field of TBI recovery.
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Dr. Norman Doidge hasn't answered my email either.
You can suggest your ideas here:
http://www.xprize.org/contact 

And if our stroke associations were anything like the Michael J. Fox Foundation we might be able to ask them to coordinate this type of stuff.
ARGHHH!!!