Article

This study examined the immediate effects of noxious and innocuous
thermal stimulation intervention on corticomotor excitability for the paretic arm
in patients with stroke. DESIGN: Sixteen patients with stroke for more than 3 mos
were randomly assigned into the experimental and control groups. All participants
received the thermal stimulation protocol on the affected arm for 30 mins. The
experimental group received noxious heat (46 degrees C-47 degrees C) and cold (7
degrees C-8 degrees C) stimuli, and the control group received innocuous heat (40
degrees C-41 degrees C) and cold (20 degrees C-21 degrees C) stimuli.
Corticomotor excitability was assessed to measure the motor threshold, size of
cortical motor output map, and mean motor evoked potentials for the abductor
pollicis brevis by focal transcranial magnetic stimulation before and after 30
mins of thermal stimulation intervention program. RESULTS: The findings of
transcranial magnetic stimulation revealed a significant increase in map size of
the affected hemisphere and mean motor evoked potentials in the experimental
group. Moreover, significant differences in the change values of map size (7.0
[7.9] for the experimental group vs. -1.7 [2.9] for the control group, P = 0.03)
and mean (SD) motor evoked potentials (0.4 [8.9] mV for the experimental group
vs. -0.1 [0.1] mV for the control group, P = 0.03) were found. CONCLUSIONS: The
preliminary results suggest that the noxious 30 mins of thermal stimulation
intervention induced neurophysiologic changes in the motor cortex of the lesioned
hemisphere.

Langue : ANGLAIS