Neurorehabilitation Research

KEY FINDING: Localized spine pain is the most common symptom in patients with epidural spinal cord compression at the time of diagnosis.

KEY FINDING: Arm posture modulated corticomotor excitability of the transferred biceps differently than the nonimpaired biceps.

KEY FINDING: Subjects with SCI improved their performance on visuo-spatial motor training tasks using a BMI, showing increased smoothness, accuracy, and speed in cursor control.

KEY FINDING: BWS robotic-assisted step training can lead to changes in spinal reflex pathways in patients with SCI or stroke, including re-emergence of physiological phase modulation.

KEY FINDING: Individuals with complete hand paralysis were able to maintain brain-control of closing and opening a virtual hand with an average of 63% success, significantly above chance.

KEY FINDING: A paraplegic patient regained plantarflexion and dorsiflexion of the ankles of both legs after PAS treatment.

KEY FINDING: Classification accuracies when distinguishing walking from baseline were high, both in healthy participants (above 93%) and stroke patients (above 89%), indicating the feasibility of BCI-based robotic-assisted training devices.

KEY FINDING: Simultaneous application of anodal tDCS with PES significantly increased changes in disynaptic reciprocal inhibition and long-latency presynaptic inhibition in both healthy and SCI groups for at least 20 min after the stimulation.

KEY FINDING: Multi-disciplinary approaches are critical for therapeutic techniques to realize their full potential, suggesting that well-timed, goal-directed therapy and positive feedback mechanisms are necessary for axonal sprouting and lasting functional improvement.

KEY FINDING: Specialist rehabilitation leads to substantial savings in ongoing care costs, particularly for high-dependency patients.