0-TESTO COMPLETO.pdf - Fondazione Santa Lucia

RF07.41 – Access equity and qualitative standard of rehabilitation in rare diseases…
sively integrated with the functional measures of the outcome and other neurophysiological
data (i.e. gait analysis) in order to implement a multidisciplinary
framework describing the CMT disease evolution and/or rehabilitation
intervention. This O.U. will also take into account some aspects of EEG experimentation
(e.g. physical signals, configuration of sensors, etc) in order to
standardize the quality of EEG data acquisition (number of EEG channels,
expected artifacts) for future application. This phase is expected to last about
2 months. At the end, the experimental materials and methods are defined to
be applied in the clinical study.
Brain Plasticity
The procedures applied in this proposal by this O.U. are briefly explained
as follows:
– EEG data will be acquired by a 96-128 channel EEG system available
in this O.U. Three-shell realistic head models will be generated for each subject,
with the help of the Curry 4.6 software (Compumedics Neuroscan Ltd.,
El Paso, Texas). A first analysis involves the estimation of the time-varying
electrophysiological activity for selected cortical regions. The cortical sources
are modeled by using a distributed source model with a realistic cortical
shape. The strength of these sources are then estimated by means of a linear
inverse procedure using a weighted-minimum norm approach. By iterating
the solution of the linear inverse problem at each time point, we obtain the
cortical current density (CCD) waveforms relative to each current source
used. The locations of the cortical EEG sources (region of interests, ROIs) are
related to the anatomical landmarks that are distinguished on the individual
MRIs which will be obtained from each patient. The functional connectivity
patterns related to the task conditions are estimated by computing the
directed transfer function (DTF). This estimator is based on a multivariate
autoregressive model of the set of biological signals under examination and it
provides a spectral estimation of the strength and direction of any causal link
between signals within the given set.
According to this specific aim of the current proposal, this O.U. will estimate
first the topography and time course of the sensorimotor cortical activity
generated by the preparation and execution of hand simple movement (selfpaced).
Second, transient functional interactions between primary and “ nonprimary
” motor cortical areas (interregional functional connectivity) will be
estimated by means of the different functional connectivity estimators within
the EEG alpha (8-13 Hz) and beta (13-30 Hz) ranges of frequency, which are
known to be the most relevant to motor processing. In addition, the procedure
described above will be applied to investigate the cortical component of the
preserved somatosensory evoked response to electrical stimulation of the
median nerve. This phase is expected take place during the second year of the
project, after the EEG signal acquisition from the selected population of
patients. A control condition will be represented by a sample of healthy subjects
and by a sequence of EEG recording according to the patient follow up.
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