Browsing by Subject "Neural plasticity"

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    Enhancement of motor functional recovery in thoracic spinal cord injury: voluntary wheel running versus forced treadmill exercise
    (Wolters Kluwer, 2025) Lee, Do-Hun; Cao, Dan; Moon, Younghye; Chen, Chen; Liu, Nai-Kui; Xu, Xiao-Ming; Wu, Wei; Neurological Surgery, School of Medicine
    Spinal cord injury necessitates effective rehabilitation strategies, with exercise therapies showing promise in promoting recovery. This study investigated the impact of rehabilitation exercise on functional recovery and morphological changes following thoracic contusive spinal cord injury. After a 7-day recovery period after spinal cord injury, mice were assigned to either a trained group (10 weeks of voluntary running wheel or forced treadmill exercise) or an untrained group. Bi-weekly assessments revealed that the exercise-trained group, particularly the voluntary wheel exercise subgroup, displayed significantly improved locomotor recovery, more plasticity of dopaminergic and serotonin modulation compared with the untrained group. Additionally, exercise interventions led to gait pattern restoration and enhanced transcranial magnetic motor-evoked potentials. Despite consistent injury areas across groups, exercise training promoted terminal innervation of descending axons. In summary, voluntary wheel exercise shows promise for enhancing outcomes after thoracic contusive spinal cord injury, emphasizing the role of exercise modality in promoting recovery and morphological changes in spinal cord injuries. Our findings will influence future strategies for rehabilitation exercises, restoring functional movement after spinal cord injury.
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    Rebuilding Neural Pathways in Older Adults with Art Therapy
    (2019) Rhoades, Torrie; Misluk, Eileen
    This paper explores scholarly literature regarding dementia, neural pathways, dementia studies, types of dementia, and previous art therapy studies with the aging population. A study was conducted at two aging facilities in a midwestern metropolitan city to determine correlations between quality of life, mood, and art therapy interventions for people with dementia. This grant funded study used a mixed methods methodology which combined both quantitative and qualitative research to provide a variety of data collection measures that can be used to provide a broader understanding of the clients. Two surveys were given to all participants in August and December: The Brunnsviken Brief Quality of life scale (BBQ) and the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS). In addition to those measures, the researchers collected participant verbalizations throughout the research study. It was determined that the results of this study did not demonstrate a correlation between mood and quality of life in the domain areas studied. Some participants that showed decreased depression and showed a decrease in QoL, while some showed an increase in QoL, and others showed no change at all. An increase in mood across 61% of participants during the art therapy study warrants a deeper look into whether this type of intervention is responsible for decreased depressive symptoms. Based on the findings in the study, formal assessments may not be the most accurate way to gather the benefits with this population due to the presence of cognitive decline and lowered ability to self-report.