Neuronal Circuit Remodeling in the Contralateral Cortical Hemisphere during Functional Recovery from Cerebral Infarction
By Y. Takatsuru, D. Fukumoto, Miki Yoshitomo, T. Nemoto, H. Tsukada, J. Nabekura. 2009
167 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Recent advances in functional imaging of human brain activity in stroke patients, e.g., functional magnetic resonance imaging, have revealed that cortical hemisphere contralateral to the infarction plays an important role in the recovery process. However, underlying mechanisms occurring in contralateral hemisphere during functional recovery have not been elucidated. We experimentally induced a complete infarction of somatosensory cortex in right hemisphere of mice and examined the neuronal changes in contralateral (left) somatosensory cortex during recovery. Both basal and ipsilateral somatosensory stimuli-evoked neuronal activity in left (intact) hemisphere transiently increased 2 d after stroke, followed by an increase in the turnover rate of usually stable mushroom-type synaptic spines at 1 week, observed by using two-photon imaging in vivo. At 4 weeks after stroke, when functional recovery had occurred, a new pattern of electrical circuit activity in response to somatosensory stimuli was established in intact ipsilateral hemisphere. Thus, the left somatosensory cortex can compensate for the loss of the right somatosensory cortex by remodeling neuronal circuits and establishing new sensory processing. This finding could contribute to establish the effective clinical treatments targeted on the intact hemisphere for the recovery of impaired functions and to achieve better quality of life of patients.
Subfields: Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience, Neurology
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Citations in the corpus
- Adult neurogenesis in brain repair: cellular plasticity vs. cellular replacement (2014, background): “The contralateral hemisphere is reorganized and new connections are formed between intact neurons to take over some of the functions of the injured hemisphere (Takatsuru et al., 2009, 2011).”
- Diaschisis: past, present, future. (2014, background): “However, in the absence of acute measures, the remote impact of a lesion remains unknown (Takatsuru et al., 2009; Johnston et al., 2013).”