Nudo, Randolph J. “Recovery after Brain Injury: Mechanisms and Principles.” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 7, no. December (2013): 887. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00887.
Following a brain injury, the neural tissue undergoes changes either spontaneously or due to behavioral experience. Understanding this spontaneous and experience-driven will help us optimize these processes to maximize recovery.
This paper provides a review of our current understanding of the recovery process following brain injury, by discussing evidence under the following major aspect of brain recovery:
- Mechanisms of experience-induced plasticity
- Motor skill learning and plasticity
- Motor skill learning versus motor user
- Injury-induced plasticity
- Interaction between experience and cortical plasticity
- Window of opportunity
Mechanisms of experience-induced plasticity
- Motor experience following an injury is a major factor driving cortical reorganization modulating cortical structure and function.
- Axonal sprouting plays a big role in neural plasticity.
- The emergent properties of a cortical area are determined by three factors:
- Behavioral demand
- Repetition
- Temporal coincidence
- Activity plays a big role in neural development as well.
- Synchronous neural activity plays a role in axonal sprouting from the intact cortex to the peri-infarct cortex.
- Context-dependent reinforcement is also critical for plasticity.
- The motor cortex has a fractionated organization with overlapping representations. Adjacent areas are highly connected through intra-cortical fibers. Modification of these intra-cortical connections is believed to underlie motor skill acquisition.
- Motor maps are highly dynamic and can be modified by various intrinsic and extrinsic factors. There is a balance between excitatory and inhibitory activity that is responsible for the stability of motor maps. A mismatch in this balance will drive the maps towards a new state ⇒ different skills.