fMRI Neurofeedback for Motor Rehabilitation

Objective: The objective of this study is to understand whether healthy volunteers and patients with chronic stroke resulting in hemiparesis can learn how to modulate their brain activity using feedback during real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging (rtfMRI), and whether such feedback training can lead to improvement in motor rehabilitation in chronic stroke patients. Study population: This study will be carried out in two parallel phases. In Phase 1, we will study learning to control brain functional activation (feedback technique using rtfMRI) in adult healthy volunteers; in Phase 2, we will study adult patients with chronic stroke. In both phases, we intend to study whether feedback training with rtfMRI leads to increased control of brain activity and whether this correlates with improvements in motor control in healthy participants and improvement in motor function, in chronic stroke patients, both immediately after training and at later time points. The reason for carrying out this study in parallel is that, as stated recently by Dr Petra Kaufman during a PIRC meeting, patients with brain lesions may benefit from this approach even if healthy volunteers do not. Design: Phase 1: We will test if healthy volunteers can learn to modulate their own brain connectivity using feedback of connectivity patterns between two brain regions during an rtfMRI neurofeedback paradigm. Phase 2: We will test if chronic stroke patients can learn to modulate their brain activity and connectivity similar to the healthy volunteers, and if such learning can improve function. Outcome measures: The primary outcome for Phases 1 and 2 is the difference in brain activation and brain connectivity after feedback training compared to baseline. Secondary outcomes for both phases include: 1) changes in brain connectivity during rest, and when no feedback image is displayed (structural and/or functional connectivity), 2) changes in motor behavior after training compared to baseline, both immediately after and following a time delay, and 3) correlations between changes in behavior and changes in brain activity and brain connectivity (as measured in 1 and 2).