Researchers propose new approach for post-stroke rehabilitation

The existing approach for brain stimulation to rehabilitate patients after a stroke does not take into account the diversity of lesions and the individual characteristics of patients' brains, a study has found.

In recent decades, non-invasive neuromodulation methods such as electric and magnetic stimulation of various parts of the nervous system have been increasingly used to rehabilitate patients after a stroke.

Stimulation selectively affects different parts of the brain, which allows you to functionally enhance activity in some areas while suppressing unwanted processes in others that impede the restoration of brain functions.

This is a promising mean of rehabilitation after a stroke. However, its results in patients remain highly variable.

Authors of the study, which was published in the journal 'Frontiers in Neurology', argued that the main reason for the lack of effectiveness in neuromodulation approaches after a stroke is an inadequate selection of patients for the application of a particular brain stimulation technique.

They said the existing approach does not take into account the diversity of lesions after a stroke and the variability of individual responses to brain stimulation as a whole.

The researchers have proposed two criteria for selecting the optimal brain stimulation strategy.

The first is an analysis of the interactions between the hemispheres. Now, all patients, regardless of the severity of injury after a stroke, are offered a relatively standard treatment regimen. This approach relies on the idea of interhemispheric competition.

"For a long time, it was believed that when one hemisphere is bad, the second, instead of helping it, suppresses it even more," said