A Cortico-Basal Ganglia Model for choosing an optimal rehabilitation strategy in Hemiparetic Stroke

Abstract

13To facilitate the selection of an optimal therapy for a stroke patient with upper extremity 14 hemiparesis, we propose a cortico-basal ganglia model capable of performing reaching tasks 15 under normal and stroke conditions. The model contains two hemispherical systems, each 16 organized into an outer sensory-motor cortical loop and an inner basal ganglia (BG) loop, 17 controlling their respective hands. In addition to constraint induced movement therapy (CIMT), 18 the model performs both unimanual and bimanual reaching tasks and the simulation results are in 19congruence with the experiment conducted by Rose et al (2004). Based on our study on the 20 effect of lesion size on arm performance, we hypothesize that the effectiveness of a therapy 21 could greatly depend on this factor. By virtue of the model's ability to capture the experimental 22 results effectively, we believe that it can serve as a benchmark for the development and testing of 23 various rehabilitation strategies for stroke. 24