Ipsilateral EEG mu rhythm reflects the excitability of uncrossed pathways projecting to shoulder muscles.
Keita Hasegawa, Shoko Kasuga, Kenichi Takasaki and 3 others
PMID 28841920WHAT IT FOUND
In healthy adults, imagining shoulder elevation produced brain-wave suppression on the same side as the shoulder, and stronger suppression was linked to larger shoulder muscle responses to brain stimulation.
Finger imagery was mainly opposite-side.
Key findings
01During right shoulder elevation, brain-wave suppression appeared in both hemispheres during movement and imagery.
02During right finger pinching, brain-wave suppression appeared mainly in the opposite hemisphere.
03Greater same-side brain-wave suppression during shoulder imagery was associated with larger shoulder muscle responses to brain stimulation.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
The study used healthy young adults, so it does not show what happens in people with stroke or other neurological conditions. It measured brain and muscle responses during imagined movement, not whether any training improved shoulder function in patients. The sample was small, and only some individual correlations were significant, so the finding is not strong enough to guide treatment. EEG was recorded from the scalp, and the authors note that attention or cognitive activity can also produce similar alpha-band changes. Two participants were excluded from shoulder imagery analysis and one from finger imagery analysis because muscle responses were not evoked.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that ipsilateral mu neurofeedback improves shoulder recovery in patients. This was a small study in healthy adults that only showed an association between EEG desynchronization and muscle responses during imagery; no clinical outcome was tested.