Woo Hyun Shim1, Bruce Rosen2, Jaeseung Jeong1, Young Ro Kim2
1Bio & Brain, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, (KAIST), Daejoen, Korea, Republic of; 2Radiology, Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Charlestown, MA, United States
The restorative mechanism of stroke has been of high interest but has not yet been fully understood. In this regard, we investigated both task-induced fMRI responses and resting-state connectivity using the rat models recovered from impaired sensorimotor functions after severe ischemic stroke. Our results show that the electrical stimulation of stroke affected forelimbs induce no fMRI responses in the entire brain and also demonstrate the markedly increased functional connectivity in the contralesional (non-stroke) hemisphere. This result implies that the restoration of sensorimotor function may be associated with the increase and spatial expansion of functional connectivity mostly within the contralesional hemisphere.