Effect of sensory and motor connectivity on hand function in pediatric hemiplegia.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

We tested the hypothesis that somatosensory system injury would more strongly affect movement than motor system injury in children with unilateral cerebral palsy (USCP). This hypothesis was based on how somatosensory and corticospinal circuits adapt to injury during development; whereas the motor system can maintain connections to the impaired hand from the uninjured hemisphere, this does not occur in the somatosensory system. As a corollary, cortical injury strongly impairs sensory function, so we hypothesized that cortical lesions would impair hand function more than subcortical lesions.

Methods

Twenty-four children with unilateral cerebral palsy had physiological and anatomical measures of the motor and somatosensory systems and lesion classification. Motor phys

SUBMITTER: Gupta D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5708868 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature