Brain stimulation helps recover from stroke

A new therapy that uses magnetic pulses to stimulate the brain helps stroke patients recover motor function. Researchers from the Harvard Medical School in Boston found that magnetic stimulation is a non-invasive, painless therapy that can be done while patients are awake. The treatment, called repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), is applied to the unaffected brain hemisphere of stroke patients. Stimulating the healthy side of the brain is believed to reduce activity and promote increased activity in the stroke-damaged side of the brain. With the treatment, a brief electrical current is passed through an insulated wire coil that is placed on the scalp creating a magnetic pulse that stimulates the outer part of the brain called the cortex. Researchers treated 10 patients who had experienced a stroke within the previous 12 months and who were relearning to use their affected hands. They underwent three stimulation sessions an hour apart. A sham treatment was also given to patients, and six healthy control subjects underwent the same testing protocol, to ensure that changes in test performance could not be attributed to learning effects. With stimulation, stroke patients improved by as much as 50 percent on some of the tests, such as a reaction time test, compared with sham treatment. Researchers also observed improved results on the so-called Purdue Pegboard test results, with a significant increase in the number of correctly placed pegs. Control subjects showed no changes in test performance over time. The improvements though were temporary. If the number of sessions is increased, it will increase the duration and magnitude of the effect.