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Le Dr Numa Dancause de la Faculté des neurosciences et médecine de l’Université de Montréal donnera un séminaire à 13h le 16 décembre en R16. Vous trouverez ci-dessous le titre et le résumé de la conférence

Title : Using animal models to improve neuromodulatory approaches that increase stroke recovery: The role of interhemispheric balance

Numa Dancause, Bsc(PT), PhD. Département de Neurosciences, Faculté de Médecine and Center interdisciplinaire de recherche sur le cerveau et l’apprentissage (CIRCA), Université de Montréal, Québec, Canada, H3C 3J7.

One promising rehabilitation catalyzer studied today in clinical research for stroke recovery is non-invasive brain stimulation, for example using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), to reactivate dormant circuits and rewire the brain. Most often, repetitive TMS protocols attempt to reduce the activity of the primary motor cortex (M1) in the hemisphere opposite to the lesion (the contralesional hemisphere) based on the concept of interhemispheric imbalance. While the initial experiments that tested this strategy in stroke patients obtained positive results, other studies have reported more limited or even detrimental effects. These negative findings are stressing that other mechanisms may take place across different patients. Our laboratory has been investigating various mechanistic assumptions related to the concept of interhemispheric imbalance, with the hope that a better understanding of these mechanisms will help design more effective neuromodulatory protocols. Together, the results suggest that the interhemispheric imbalance hypothesis is oversimplified and that it is unlikely this ‘one-size-fits-all’ neuromodulatory approach will help recovery across individuals after stroke. Rather, alternative treatments should be developed. Delivery should be individualized, taking into account the specific mechanisms involved in the recovery, which depend of various factors such as the lesion profile and the level impairments.