Research on How Brain Corrects Movement Gives Better Stroke Understanding
The brain is one of the most complex things in the world - being able to do so many things that can leave mathematicians and scientists in awe, as well as reacting in a drop of a hat. Scientists and experts find the brain so fascinating that even common movements, such as walking, astounds them.
But aside from basic movement, what experts need to understand now is how difficulty in movement brought about by stroke occurs and how the brain processes it. That is why researchers at Queen's University studied how the brain corrects movement after being hit or bumped, in the hopes of understanding the difficulties in movement.
According to the researchers, humans' brains rapidly correct any disturbances in motion, like external knocks to the body, and that several pathways and regions of the central nervous system contribute to this response.
However, with this understanding, it was only recently did researchers discover that the primary cortex is the one that provides this knowledge of physics to the limbs. Corrective movement pathway of the brain works by limiting and correcting the domino effect of involuntary bodily movement caused by an external blow.
For example, a blow to the shoulder that causes the whole arm to swing about may require the brain to quickly turn on muscles in the shoulder, bicep, forearm, and hand in order to regain control of the limb.
Stokes and Movement
Having these findings, Stephen Scott, a neuroscience professor and motor behavior specialist in the Department of Biomedical and Molecular Sciences at the university along with other co-researchers, noted that strokes that take place in the primary motor cortex may cause varying levels of damage to this corrective movement pathway.
These varying levels of damage to the pathway is the one responsible as to why some stroke patients are able to improve their movement skills in rehabilitation and why some patients remain uncoordinated and unsteady.
Researchers hope that these findings can be applied to stroke patients by examining the damage patients have to their sensory pathways and how the damage relates to movement problems, and hope that it can help in future rehabilitations.
But since having a stroke leads to such a crippling state of the body, it is important to know how to recover from it. According to Adrienne Warber of eHow Health, there are some things that people can do to recover from stroke. There things are:
- To participate in a stroke rehabilitation program
- Eat a healthy, well-balanced diet
- Obey doctor's orders and to take all prescribed medications
- Set recovery goals
- Get all the necessary tools to assist in recovery
- Accept help when in need of assistance
- Be determined to recover
- Keep a positive attitude