Abstract
Objective. To explore cortical reorganization of patients recovered from Bell's palsy (BP) by task-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during finger and orofacial movements and provide more evidence for acupuncture clinical treatment of BP. Methods. We collected 17 BP patients with complete clinical recovery (BP group) and 20 healthy volunteers (control group) accepted the task-state fMRI scans with lip pursing movements and finger movements, respectively. Results. It was found that there were significant differences of brain functional status between the two groups. Conclusions. The results showed that there was cortical reorganization in the brain of patients recovered from BP after acupuncture treatment, which also suggested the relationship between the hand motor areas and facial motor areas of BP patients.
Highlights
Cortical reorganization, called “cortical plasticity,” is the ability of the cortex to adapt to changing circumstances and new information
Rijntjes et al used positron emission tomography (PET) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to detect cortical reorganization in patients with facial palsy, which demonstrated that facial motor deafferentation leads to an enlargement and extension of the cortical hand field into the face area [12]
They had been assessed as clinical recovery after acupuncture treatment by the HouseBrackmann facial nerve grading system (HBS) (House and Brackmann, 1985) [15]
Summary
Called “cortical plasticity,” is the ability of the cortex to adapt to changing circumstances and new information. Bell’s palsy is an acute, idiopathic, and unilateral paralysis of the face with a pure peripheral deafferentation and dysfunction of the facial nerve [5, 6], which is a common condition affecting approximately 20–35/100 000 people [7]. It is usually treated by medicine, surgical operation, acupuncture, and other clinical methods [8,9,10,11]. The result showed the facial motor region was invaded by the neighboured tongue motor area bilaterally
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