A New Look at Stimulation Therapy with Complex-Structured Stimuli in Traumatic Brain Injuries

Abstract

Neurorehabilitation, based on the principles of neuroplasticity, is considered to be the promising way to mitigate the adverse consequences of traumatic brain injury (TBI) to cognitive functions. The ability of the brain to restore and to create the neural connections makes it essential to search for methods that could stimulate the restoration of disturbed networks and also can help building the new ways to compensate the deficit of the cognitive functions. Technologies of cognitive rehabilitation relying on the structural and functional plasticity of the brain include programs of mental and physical training and various techniques of stimulation therapy, including transcranial magnetic and electrical stimulation, and noninvasive sensory stimulation exploiting the BWE phenomenon. Currently, the stimulation therapy applies a periodic rhythm of audio, visual and other signals which can provide the local improvement of the cortical activity in the particular range of oscillations. But it is unable to restore the complex dynamics of the activity of the brain characteristic of a healthy person and therefore, cognitive performance of the person. We suppose that in patients after brain injuries, the fractal flicker stimulation, as well as the stimulation by complex-structured sound tones and signals of other modalities will promote activating the structural- functional plasticity and improving the memory and other cognitive functions. The changes of the cortical activity evoked by complex-structured stimuli can mediate the impact of fractal stimulation on cognitive performance.