NPsych Pick of the Month: The aim of this study was to determine what type of rehabilitation is most effective for prolonged symptoms in adults following mild traumatic brain injury.
This important book presents a unique, personal account of the impact a mild traumatic brain injury can have.
This book provides an accessible introduction for healthcare professionals who work with people living with HIV.
This paper describes a condition termed post-flight confusion using anecdotal and clinical observations.
Specialist rehabilitation proved highly cost-efficient for severely disabled patients with TBI.
Neuropsychological assessment can improve both diagnostic classification and prediction of long-term daily-life outcomes in patients across the lifespan.
Psychological resilience plays an important role in recovery from concussion, and this relationship may be mediated by anxiety and depressive symptoms.
Structural and functional connectivity changes in response to short-term neurofeedback training with motor imagery
T.Marins, E.C. Rodrigues, T.Bortolini, Bruno Melo, J.Molla, F.Tovar-Molla. Available online 18 March 2019. In Press, Corrected Proof. NeuroImage
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.03.027
Abstract
Recent findings have been challenging current understanding of how fast the human brain change its structural and functional connections in response to training. One powerful way to deepen the inner workings of human brain plasticity is using neurofeedback (NFB) by fMRI, a technique that allows self-induced brain plasticity by means of modulating brain activity in real time. In the present randomized, double-blind and sham-controlled study, we use NFB to train healthy individuals to reinforce brain patterns related to motor execution while performing a motor imagery task, with no overt movement. After 1 h of NFB training, participants displayed increased fractional anisotropy (FA) in the sensorimotor segment of corpus callosum and increased functional connectivity of the sensorimotor resting state network. Increased functional connectivity was also observed in the default mode network. These results were not observed in the control group, which was trained with sham feedback. To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of white matter FA changes following a very short training schedule (<1 h). Our results suggest that NFB by fMRI can be an interesting tool to explore dynamic aspects of brain plasticity and open new venues for investigating brain plasticity in healthy individuals and in neurological conditions.
Effects of animal-assisted therapy on social behaviour in patients with acquired brain injury: a randomised controlled trial.
Karin Hediger, Stefan Thommen, Cora Wagner, Jens Gaab & Margret Hund-Georgiadis. Nature: Scientific Reports, volume 9, Published: 09 April 2019.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-42280-0
Abstract
Animal-assisted therapy (AAT) is increasingly used to address impaired social competence in patients with acquired brain injury. However, the efficacy of AAT has not been tested in these patients. We used a randomised, controlled within subject trial to determine the effects of AAT on social competence in patients undergoing stationary neurorehabilitation. Participants received both AAT sessions and paralleled conventional therapy sessions. The patients’ social behaviour was systematically coded on the basis of video recordings of therapy sessions. Moreover, mood, treatment motivation and satisfaction was measured during each therapy session. We analysed 222 AAT and 219 control sessions of 19 patients with linear mixed models. Patients showed a significantly higher amount of social behaviour during AAT. Furthermore, patients’ positive emotions, verbal and non-verbal communication, mood, treatment motivation and satisfaction were increased in the presence of an animal. Neutral emotions were reduced but no effect was found regarding negative emotions. Our results show that AAT increases aspects of social competence and leads to higher emotional involvement of patients with acquired brain injury, reflected in higher social engagement, motivation and satisfaction during a therapeutic session.
In summary, CCR5 is a translational target for neural repair in stroke and TBI and the first reported gene associated with enhanced recovery in human stroke.
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