Plasticity in the Brain after a Traumatic Brachial Plexus Injury in Adults

Torres, Fernanda F; Ramalho, Bia Lima; Patroclo, Cristiane B.; Souza, Lidiane; Guimarães, Fernanda Burle dos Santos; Martins, José Vicente; Rangel, Marisa; Vargas, Cláudia D.

doi:10.5772/intechopen.77133

Cited by 8 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 90 publications

(120 reference statements)

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“…There is mounting evidence indicating that modifications in the body can alter peripersonal space [24][25][26][27][28]. Among the different types of peripheral injury, brachial plexus injury (BPI) has been seen as a challenging model for the study of brain plasticity [29][30][31][32][33][34][35]. Although the upper limb is still connected to the body/trunk, its sensory and motor functions can be deeply impaired due to nerve damage [34].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Among the different types of peripheral injury, brachial plexus injury (BPI) has been seen as a challenging model for the study of brain plasticity [29][30][31][32][33][34][35]. Although the upper limb is still connected to the body/trunk, its sensory and motor functions can be deeply impaired due to nerve damage [34]. BPI patients present structural brain change, as well as grey matter atrophy in multiple cortical areas mostly related with motor function [36].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Predicting Upcoming Events Occurring in the Space Surrounding the Hand

et al. 2021

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Predicting upcoming sensorimotor events means creating forward estimates of the body and the surrounding world. This ability is a fundamental aspect of skilled motor behavior and requires an accurate and constantly updated representation of the body and the environment. To test whether these prediction mechanisms could be affected by a peripheral injury, we employed an action observation and electroencephalogram (EEG) paradigm to assess the occurrence of prediction markers in anticipation of observed sensorimotor events in healthy and brachial plexus injury (BPI) participants. Nine healthy subjects and six BPI patients watched a series of video clips showing an actor’s hand and a colored ball in an egocentric perspective. The color of the ball indicated whether the hand would grasp it (hand movement), or the ball would roll toward the hand and touch it (ball movement), or no event would occur (no movement). In healthy participants, we expected to find distinct electroencephalographic activation patterns (EEG signatures) specific to the prediction of the occurrence of each of these situations. Cluster analysis from EEG signals recorded from electrodes placed over the sensorimotor cortex of control participants showed that predicting either an upcoming hand movement or the occurrence of a tactile event yielded specific neural signatures. In BPI participants, the EEG signals from the sensorimotor cortex contralateral to the dominant hand in the hand movement condition were different compared to the other conditions. Furthermore, there were no differences between ball movement and no movement conditions in the sensorimotor cortex contralateral to the dominant hand, suggesting that BPI blurred specifically the ability to predict upcoming tactile events for the dominant hand. These results highlight the role of the sensorimotor cortex in creating estimates of both actions and tactile interactions in the space around the body and suggest plastic effects on prediction coding following peripheral sensorimotor loss.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predicting Upcoming Events Occurring in the Space Surrounding the Hand

et al. 2021

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“…Since the returning movement had no target, these alterations might reflect a movement adapted to new internal demands, for example the changes in balance observed in TBPI individuals (Souza et al, 2016). TBPI individuals display alterations in UL motor representations of both hemispheres (Liu et al, 2013; Fraiman et al, 2016; Torres et al, 2018; Rangel et al, 2021). Recent findings suggest that the neural activity in the motor cortex of single hemisphere allows decoding the kinematics from both the contralateral limb and the ipsilateral limb, suggesting that movements may be bi-hemispherically represented in humans (Bundy et al, 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Upper limb joint coordination acts to preserve hand kinematics after a traumatic brachial plexus injury

Lustosa

Silva

Carvalho

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Background: Traumatic brachial plexus injury (TBPI) causes a sensorimotor deficit in upper limb (UL) movements. Objective: Our aim was to investigate the arm-forearm coordination of both the injured and uninjured UL of TBPI subjects. Methods: TBPI participants (n=13) and controls (n=10) matched in age, gender, and anthropometric characteristics were recruited. Kinematics from the shoulder, elbow, wrist and index finger markers were collected while upstanding participants transported a cup to mouth and returned the UL to a starting position. The UL coordination was measured through the relative phase (RP) between arm and forearm phase angles and analyzed as a function of the hand kinematics. Results: For all participants, the hand transport had a shorter time to peak velocity (p<0.01) compared to the return. Also, for the control and the uninjured TBPI UL, the RP showed a coordination pattern that favored forearm movements in the peak velocity of the transport phase (p<0.001). TBPI participants' injured UL showed a longer movement duration in comparison to controls (p<0.05), but no differences in peak velocity, time to peak velocity and trajectory length, indicating preserved hand kinematics. The RP of the injured UL revealed altered coordination in favor of arm movements compared to controls and to the uninjured UL (p<0.001). Finally, TBPI participants' uninjured UL showed altered control of arm and forearm phase angles during the deceleration of hand movements compared to controls (p<0.05). Conclusion: These results suggest that UL coordination is reorganized after a TBPI so as to preserve hand kinematics.

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“…The brachial plexus is composed of a set of peripheral nerves responsible for the sensory, motor, and autonomic innervation of the upper limbs. Injury to peripheral nerve structures and/or medullary avulsion as a result of a TBPI lead to changes in cortical representations and are also often associated with neuropathic pain (Torres et al, 2019). In recent years, the frequency of this type of injury (mainly caused by motorcycles accidents) has grown considerably in developing countries and has already become a public health concern.…”

Section: The Brachial Plexus Injury Database: a Case Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Neuroscience Experiments System (NES)–A Software Tool to Manage Experimental Data and Its Provenance

Ruiz-Olazar

Rocha

Vargas

et al. 2022

Front. Neuroinform.

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Computational tools can transform the manner by which neuroscientists perform their experiments. More than helping researchers to manage the complexity of experimental data, these tools can increase the value of experiments by enabling reproducibility and supporting the sharing and reuse of data. Despite the remarkable advances made in the Neuroinformatics field in recent years, there is still a lack of open-source computational tools to cope with the heterogeneity and volume of neuroscientific data and the related metadata that needs to be collected during an experiment and stored for posterior analysis. In this work, we present the Neuroscience Experiments System (NES), a free software to assist researchers in data collecting routines of clinical, electrophysiological, and behavioral experiments. NES enables researchers to efficiently perform the management of their experimental data in a secure and user-friendly environment, providing a unified repository for the experimental data of an entire research group. Furthermore, its modular software architecture is aligned with several initiatives of the neuroscience community and promotes standardized data formats for experiments and analysis reporting.

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Plasticity in the Brain after a Traumatic Brachial Plexus Injury in Adults

Cited by 8 publications

References 90 publications

Predicting Upcoming Events Occurring in the Space Surrounding the Hand

Predicting Upcoming Events Occurring in the Space Surrounding the Hand

Upper limb joint coordination acts to preserve hand kinematics after a traumatic brachial plexus injury

The Neuroscience Experiments System (NES)–A Software Tool to Manage Experimental Data and Its Provenance

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