Corticospinal Excitability in Humans during Motor Imagery Coupled with Functional Electrical Stimulation

Abstract

18 Healthy volunteers were involved and the effect of functional neuromuscular electrical stimulation, which causes flexion of the hand on the corticospinal excitability during motor imaging and resting state, was investigated in this study. It was shown that the combined action of functional electrical stimulation and the kinesthetic motor imagery leads to an increase of the amplitude of motor evoked potentials, caused by a single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation. At the same time, in the state of motor rest, this effect was not obtained. Since a change in corticospinal excitability at the cortical level may affect the processes of plastic reorganization necessary for the restoration of motor functions after strokes and other neurotraumas, the results of this work have a direct practical potential. In particular, the possibility of creating effective training complexes for the motor recovery based on motor imagery brain-computer interfaces with functional neuromuscular stimulation as a sensorimotor feedback is discussed. Rehabilitation with the use of such training complexes will help to elucidate the mechanisms of motor recovery, which are based on the phenomena of neuroplasticity due to changes in the excitability of neurons of the sensorimotor cortex.