Scalp Acupuncture Synchronizing Dual Task Gait for Enhancing Prefrontal Cortex Response.

Studies have shown that motor-cognitive dual task can greatly improve motor/cognitive function. However, the therapeutic effect of motor-cognitive dual task is still limited. How to improve dual-task performance is the key to solving this problem. Scalp acupuncture is a non-drug intervention method of traditional Chinese medicine to treat brain-derived diseases by acupuncturing the corresponding projection area of cerebral cortex function on the scalp. Studies have shown that scalp acupuncture helps improve neuronal damage and cognitive dysfunction and plays a neuroprotective function in central nervous system diseases. However, no relevant studies have discussed the synergistic gain effect of motor-cognitive dual task and scalp acupuncture. Therefore, this protocol aims to demonstrate the standardized operation of scalp acupuncture synchronizing motor-cognitive dual task and motor-cognitive dual task and compares the differences between these two tasks in healthy subjects through a randomized cross-over trial. This protocol initially revealed the possible influence mechanism of scalp acupuncture synchronizing motor-cognitive dual task on cognitive performance, gait control, and cortical brain function, which can provide new ideas and a theoretical basis for clinical exploration of new and effective non-drug treatment of integrated Chinese and Western medicine.

Motor Imagery Brain-Computer Interface in Rehabilitation of Upper Limb Motor Dysfunction After Stroke.

The rehabilitation effect of patients with moderate or severe upper limb motor dysfunction after stroke is poor, which has been the focus of research owing to the difficulties encountered. Brain-computer interface (BCI) represents a hot frontier technology in brain neuroscience research. It refers to the direct conversion of the sensory perception, imagery, cognition, and thinking of users or subjects into actions, without reliance on peripheral nerves or muscles, to establish direct communication and control channels between the brain and external devices. Motor imagery brain-computer interface (MI-BCI) is the most common clinical application of rehabilitation as a non-invasive means of rehabilitation. Previous clinical studies have confirmed that MI-BCI positively improves motor dysfunction in patients after stroke. However, there is a lack of clinical operation demonstration. To that end, this study describes in detail the treatment of MI-BCI for patients with moderate and severe upper limb dysfunction after stroke and shows the intervention effect of MI-BCI through clinical function evaluation and brain function evaluation results, thereby providing ideas and references for clinical rehabilitation application and mechanism research.

Effect of prone trunk-extension on lumbar and lower limb muscle stiffness.

This study investigated the effect of the prone trunk extension test (PTE) on lumbar and lower limb muscle stiffness to explore the optimal angle for lumbar muscle training, understand the peripheral muscle force transmission effect, and determine the modulation strategy and interaction mode of different muscles during PTE. Twenty healthy young females were recruited for this study, and the stiffness of the erector spinae (ES), semitendinosus (ST), biceps femoris (BF), medial head of the gastrocnemius (MG), and lateral head of the gastrocnemius (LG) was measured by MyotonPRO under four angular PTE conditions (0° horizontal position, 10°, 20°, and 30°). With the increasing angle, the stiffness of ES decreased gradually, while ST and BF increased first and then decreased. The stiffness of MG and LG increased first, then decreased, then increased. There was a moderate to strong negative correlation between ES stiffness variation and ST (r = -0.819 to -0.728, p < 0.001), BF (r = -0.620 to -0.527, p < 0.05), MG (r = -788 to -0.611, p < 0.01), and LG (r = -0.616 to -0.450, p < 0.05). Horizontal PTE maximizes the activation of ES. There is a tension transfer between the ES, hamstrings, and gastrocnemius, mainly between the ES, ST, and LG. The study provides data to explore the effect of peripheral muscle force transmission and the modulation strategies of different muscles during trunk extension.

The overgeneralization of pain-related fear in individuals with higher pain sensitivity: A behavioral and event-related potential study.

Fear generalization contributes to the development and maintenance of pain. Pain sensitivity has been proposed to predict the strength of fear responses to aversive stimuli. However, whether individual variation in pain sensitivity affects pain-related fear generalization and its underlying cognitive processing remains unclear. To address this gap, we recorded behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) data among 22 high pain sensitivity (HPS) and 22 low pain sensitivity (LPS) healthy adults when exposed to a fear generalization paradigm. The behavioral results indicate that the HPS group displayed higher unconditioned stimulus expectancy and greater fear, arousal, and anxiety ratings to conditioned stimulus and generalization stimulus than the LPS group (all p values < 0.05). The ERP results showed that the HPS group exhibited a larger late positive potential evoked by GS2, GS3 and CS- (all p < 0.005) but a smaller N1 evoked by all CS and GSs (all p values < 0.05) relative to the LPS group. These findings suggest that individuals with a high level of pain sensitivity allocate more attention resources to pain-related threatening stimuli, which contributes to an overgeneralization of pain-related fear.