fMRI Reactions in Motor Tasks Performed by Patients with Traumatic Brain Injury

Abstract

The study included 22 healthy right-handed subjects (age 25.1 ± 3.9) and 9 patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) (age 27.9 ± 7.3) without hemiparesis and local lesions in the sensorimotor cortex. The hemodynamical brain reactions were analyzed using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during right- and left-hand movements. It was shown that reactive changes of responses have larger interindividual variability of the main topographic activation areas during left-hand movements as compared with right-hand movements in healthy subjects. In the TBI patients, the diffuse component of reactive changes was increased and involved a larger number of brain structures, both cortex areas and subcortical formations, including areas nonspecific for the motor analyzer. These changes were most clearly expressed in the dominant hemisphere (during movement of the right hand).