Reorganization of Resting-State EEG Functional Connectivity Patterns in Children with Cerebral Palsy Following a Motor Imagery Virtual-Reality Intervention

Motor imagery (MI) has been suggested to provide additional benefits when included in traditional approaches of physical therapy for children with cerebral palsy (CP). Regardless, little is understood about the underlying neurological substrates that might justify its supposed benefits. In this work...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied sciences 2021-03, Vol.11 (5), p.2372
Main Authors: Stefano Filho, Carlos Alberto, Ignacio Serrano, José, Attux, Romis, Castellano, Gabriela, Rocon, Eduardo, del Castillo, Maria Dolores
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cerebral palsy
Children
EEG
Electroencephalography
Frequencies
functional connectivity
Functional plasticity
Graph theory
Imagery
Intervention
Medical imaging
Mental task performance
motor imagery
Neural networks
Paralysis
Patients
Physical therapy
Quality of life
Rehabilitation
resting-state
Virtual reality
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Summary:Motor imagery (MI) has been suggested to provide additional benefits when included in traditional approaches of physical therapy for children with cerebral palsy (CP). Regardless, little is understood about the underlying neurological substrates that might justify its supposed benefits. In this work, we studied resting-state (RS) electroencephalography (EEG) recordings of five children with CP that underwent a MI virtual-reality (VR) intervention. Our aim was to explore functional connectivity (FC) patterns alterations following this intervention through the formalism of graph theory, performing both group and subject-specific analyses. We found that FC patterns were more consistent across subjects prior to the MI-VR intervention, shifting along the anterior-posterior axis, post-intervention, for the β and γ bands. Additionally, group FC patterns were not found for the α range. Furthermore, intra-subject analyses reinforced the existence of large inter-subject variability and the need for a careful exploration of individual pattern alterations. Such patterns also hinted at a dependency between short-term functional plasticity mechanisms and the EEG frequency bands. Although our sample size is small, we provide a longitudinal analysis framework that can be replicated in future studies, especially at the group level, and whose foundation can be easily extended to verify the validity of our hypotheses.
ISSN:2076-3417
2076-3417
DOI:10.3390/app11052372