Abstract
Reports about standardized and repeatable experimental procedures investigating supraspinal activation in patients with gait disorders are scarce in current neuro-imaging literature. Well-designed and executed tasks are important to gain insight into the effects of gait-rehabilitation on sensorimotor centers of the brain. The present study aims to demonstrate the feasibility of a novel imaging paradigm, combining the magnetic resonance (MR)-compatible stepping robot (MARCOS) with sparse sampling functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure task-related BOLD signal changes and to delineate the supraspinal contribution specific to active and passive stepping. Twenty-four healthy participants underwent fMRI during active and passive, periodic, bilateral, multi-joint, lower limb flexion and extension akin to human gait. Active and passive stepping engaged several cortical and subcortical areas of the sensorimotor network, with higher relative activation of those areas during active movement. Our results indicate that the combination of MARCOS and sparse sampling fMRI is feasible for the detection of lower limb motor related supraspinal activation. Activation of the anterior cingulate and medial frontal areas suggests motor response inhibition during passive movement in healthy participants. Our results are of relevance for understanding the neural mechanisms underlying gait in the healthy.
Highlights
Coordinated periodic extension and flexion movements of the hips, knees, and ankles are common to a number of human locomotor movements, such as ground level walking, running or stair climbing
The present study aims to demonstrate the feasibility of a novel imaging paradigm, combining the magnetic resonance (MR)-compatible stepping robot (MARCOS) with sparse sampling functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure task-related BOLD signal changes and to delineate the supraspinal contribution specific to active and passive stepping
Our results indicate that the combination of MARCOS and sparse sampling functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is feasible for the detection of lower limb motor related supraspinal activation
Summary
Coordinated periodic extension and flexion movements of the hips, knees, and ankles are common to a number of human locomotor movements, such as ground level walking, running or stair climbing. It is believed that the required sensorimotor control enabling these periodic movements is achieved by the interaction of proprioceptive feedback, the central pattern generators at the spinal level, and higher-level control signals from cortical and subcortical supraspinal centers (Duysens and Van De Crommert, 1998; Dietz, 2003; La Fougere et al, 2010). Recent findings from neuro-imaging studies indicate that the supraspinal areas might be involved in the control of gait to a higher extent than previously assumed (Miyai et al, 2001; Gwin et al, 2011). Involvement of subcortical structures (i.e., the cerebellar vermis) has been reported in response to steady-state ground level walking measured by single photon emission tomography (Fukuyama et al, 1997) or positron emission tomography (La Fougere et al, 2010) acquired subsequent to task execution
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