Effect of Mental and Computer-aided Training of Reaching and Grasping Movements on Motor Control Processes in People With Bilateral Upper Limb Congenital Transverse Deficiency

Brief Summary

Detailed Description

This project will explore a potentially powerful trainings that may be administered before upper extremity transplantation to induced plasticity of sensorimotor cortex in humans with congenital absence of upper limbs. Our aim is to compare neurophysiological outcome of bilateral upper limb congenital transverse deficiency humans who are engaged in different types of training (mental-MT, computer-aided training-CAT and subjects receiving both type of trainings-CAMT). We hypothesize that all forms of training provide plastic changes in sensorimotor cortex. Specifically, we hypothesize that for CAMT group we will observe more prompt CNS-reorganization as compared to MT and CAT groups. Our second aim is to examine mechanisms of neural and muscular system plasticity underlying neurophysiological function reorganization following the specific training and also to develop a computer system for training subjects through visual biofeedback. The control procedure of virtual upper extremity should be realized through recognition of intention of hand motion based on biosignals analysis. Our protocol contains twelve weeks of trainings with three training sessions during a week (on Monday, Wednesday and Friday) and four measurement sessions (before the training period - PRE, after 4 weeks of trainings - POST4, after 8 weeks of trainings - POST8 and after 12 weeks of training - POST12). Based on different methods we will use, we would like to ewaluate: structural changes in CNS, functional changes in CNS, functional changes in peripheral nervous system and functional changes in muscles of upper extremity stump by comparing results to the pre-training (PRE) values (with results from POST4, POST8 and POST12) and across the groups.

Primary Outcomes