Affiliations: [a] Department of Neurosurgery, Komagome Metropolitan Hospital, Tokyo, Japan | [b] Department of Rehabilitation, Komagome Metropolitan Hospital, Tokyo, Japan | [c] Department of Radiologic Technology, Tokyo Metropolitan University of Health Sciences, Tokyo, Japan
Correspondence:
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Address for correspondence: Nobusada Shinoura, Department of Neurosurgery, Komagome Metropolitan Hospital, 3-18-22 Hon-Komagome, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8677, Japan. Tel.: +81 3 3823 2101; Fax: +81 3 3824 1552; E-mail: [email protected]
Note: [1] Both authors contributed equally to this work.
Abstract: Mirror therapy is effective in the rehabilitation of patients with hemiparesis, but its mechanism is not clear. In this study, a patient with brain tumor (patient 1) who underwent mirror therapy after surgery and showed drastic recovery of hand paresis, a patient with visual memory disturbance (patient 2), and five normal volunteers performed tasks related to mirror therapy in fMRI study. In patient 1 and all normal volunteers, right and left hand clenching with looking at a mirror (eye open) activated outside of cerebellum, while right and left hands clenching with eye closed activated inside of cerebellum. In patient 2, mirror therapy did not activate outside of cerebellum. In patient 1, and 3 out of 5 normal volunteers, the area of right (affected) M1 activated by right and left hands clenching with eye open was more than that by right and left hands clenching with eye closed, and that right M1 was activated by right hand clenching with eye open. In conclusion, mirror therapy facilitate the paresis of patients by activating ipsilateral M1 and outside of cerebellum, which is possibly related to visual memory function.
