Normalisation of brain connectivity through compensatory behaviour, despite congenital hand absence

Abstract

Previously we showed, using task-evoked fMRI, that compensatory intact hand usage after amputation facilitates remapping of limb representations in the cortical territory of the missing hand (Makin et al., 2013a). Here we show that compensatory arm usage in individuals born without a hand (one-handers) reflects functional connectivity of spontaneous brain activity in the cortical hand region. Compared with two-handed controls, one-handers showed reduced symmetry of hand region inter-hemispheric resting-state functional connectivity and corticospinal white matter microstructure. Nevertheless, those one-handers who more frequently use their residual (handless) arm for typically bimanual daily tasks also showed more symmetrical functional connectivity of the hand region, demonstrating that adaptive behaviour drives long-range brain organisation. We therefore suggest that compensatory arm usage maintains symmetrical sensorimotor functional connectivity in one-handers. Since variability in spontaneous functional connectivity in our study reflects ecological behaviour, we propose that inter-hemispheric symmetry, typically observed in resting sensorimotor networks, depends on coordinated motor behaviour in daily life.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.04605.001

Formation of Long-Term Locomotor Memories Is Associated with Functional Connectivity Changes in the Cerebellar–Thalamic–Cortical Network

“…Both recall and relearning reflect the formation of a long-term memory of the motor adaptation learning. We took advantage of recent studies showing that fMRI signals during rest are affected by previous neural activity (Fox and Raichle, 2007;Tambini et al, 2010;Makin et al, 2013;Stagg et al, 2014;Hahamy et al, 2015), by offline consolidation processes (Albert et al, 2009a;Censor et al, 2014;McGregor and Gribble, 2015) and reflect individual traits that are correlated with performance in a variety of cognitive and motor tasks (Taubert et al, 2011;Vahdat et al, 2011;Cole et al, 2014;.…”

Formation of Long-Term Locomotor Memories Is Associated with Functional Connectivity Changes in the Cerebellar–Thalamic–Cortical Network

“…Both recall and relearning reflect the formation of a long-term memory of the motor adaptation learning. We took advantage of recent studies showing that fMRI signals during rest are affected by previous neural activity (Fox and Raichle, 2007;Tambini et al, 2010;Makin et al, 2013;Stagg et al, 2014;Hahamy et al, 2015), by offline consolidation processes (Albert et al, 2009a;Censor et al, 2014;McGregor and Gribble, 2015) and reflect individual traits that are correlated with performance in a variety of cognitive and motor tasks (Taubert et al, 2011;Vahdat et al, 2011;Cole et al, 2014;.…”

Psychobehavioral and psychosocial aspects of neuropathic pain patients

“…Psychological interventions, as well as psychotherapy, are the road for this reorganization, since they would act on mind on "the way to deal with information without generating deliberate attitudes" 30 , that is, the way how they perform mental work. With this, chronic pain patients who would have less perceptive acuity for body image components (for dimension and alignment of body parts) and less ability to mentally visualize and foresee painful regions maneuvers 25 , and such condition would not be explainable by deficits related to working memory of executive functions 31 , although both conditions have been more commonly identified in chronic patients as compared to healthy controls [32][33][34] . The affective experience, which includes emotions and their relationships with pain, may be regulated aiming at maintaining physical and mental health, being that its mechanisms are being studied especially since the 1990s 35 .…”

“…are judgments feeding suffering which tend to increase perceived sensation intensity 23 . Pain is a conscious experience and does not exist outside consciousness 25,26 . The illustrative statement by Erdelyi 27 , "I" See Through the Lens of "Me", when translated looses the emphatic value which expresses the movement of the antagonist definition, close and at the same time distant, that has the notion of awareness.…”

“…The difficulty of patients to adapt to organizational changes would increase with chronicity; in phantom limb pain and other neuropathic pain syndromes, cortical reorganization is correlated to its magnitude 24 and the same would be true for other etiologies. The development, the shape of each one's experience, with their idiosyncrasies, derived judgments, expectations formed after judgments and suffering are characteristics of "an emerging human brain property and these are those depending on consciousness" 25 . Because pain is a sensation and suffering is the whole interpretation given and which usually follows this sensation and has remained apart from consciousness.…”