Recovery for Stroke Survivors With Magnetic Brain Stimulation

There is new hope for better recovery for patients who survive a debilitating stroke. Italian researchers have discovered that the use of magnets to stimulate the nerve cells of the brain can help to correct the condition known as hemispatial neglect, which prevents stroke patients from seeing or recognizing anything on one side of their body. The details of the research appear in the journal Neurology.

Previous studies have estimated that between 20 and 50 percent of patients suffer hemispatial neglect following a stroke. The condition most often occurs when stroke damaged is suffered in the right half of the brain.

In a news release, study author Giacomo Koch, MD, Ph.D., of the Santa Lucia Foundation in Rome, Italy stated, “The treatment is based on the theory that hemispatial neglect results when a stroke disrupts the balance between the two hemispheres of the brain. He went on to explaind, “A stroke on one side of the brain causes the other side to become overactive, and the circuits become overloaded.”

Currently, treatment for hemispatial neglect combines physical therapy with brain retraining, which involves performance of mental tasks via a computer or pen and paper. However, the treatment is often not effective enough to provide significant improvement.

A new treatment, known as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), uses a sizable magnetic coil placed against the patient’s scalp to create mild electric currents that stimulate nerve cells, which may have the ability to restore balance between both sides of the brain.

For their study, Koch and colleagues provided daily TMS treatment for 10 of 20 stroke patients who suffered from hemispatial neglect for a period of two weeks. The other 10 participants received a faux treatment, while all of the study subjects took part in brain retraining treatment.

The study participants underwent testing at the end of the study, and then again after an additional two weeks, to measure their abilities to perform daily tasks such as dialing numbers on a phone, reading a menu, and sorting coins, as well as their abilities of line crossing and figure-and-shape-copying.

The findings of the analysis showed that overall, those participants who received TMS had improved by 16.3 percent by the end of treatment, and improvement increased to 22.6 percent after another two weeks. In addition, improvement was seen in the overactive brain circuits of patients who received magnetic treatment. No improvements were noted in test scores of those who received the sham treatment.

While it is possible for patients to recover without treatment after a few weeks following a stroke, their progress can be greatly hampered during the initial weeks of suffering a stroke that are vital to their overall recovery. Use of TMS can help to prevent such hindrance to healing, and may help patients to recover better cognitive abilities and movement.

The researchers noted that the positive results of the study may be due to the combination of the use of both TMS and brain retraining treatments. In addition, because the study was small, more research will be necessary to determine whether TMS is a more effective treatment than brain retraining.