Evidence indicates that experience-dependent cortical plasticity underlies post-stroke motor recovery of the impaired upper extremity. Motor skill learning in neurologically intact individuals is thought to involve the primary motor cortex, and the majority of studies in the animal literature have studied changes in the primary sensorimotor cortex with motor rehabilitation. Whether changes in e...

Dopaminergic signalling in the striatum contributes to reinforcement of actions and motivational enhancement of motor vigour. Parkinson’s disease leads to progressive dopaminergic denervation of the striatum, impairing the function of cortico-basal ganglia networks. While levodopa therapy alleviates basal ganglia dysfunction in Parkinson’s disease, it often elicits involuntary movements, referr...

Establishing appropriate area patterning in the neocortex is a critical developmental event, and transcription factors whose expression is graded across the developing neural axes have been implicated in this process. While previous reports suggested that the transcription factor Emx1 does not contribute to neocortical area patterning, those studies were performed at perinatal ages prior to the...

The present Review deals with the motor control of facial expressions in humans. Facial expressions are a central part of human communication. Emotional face expressions have a crucial role in human nonverbal behavior, allowing a rapid transfer of information between individuals. Facial expressions can be either voluntarily or emotionally controlled. Recent studies in nonhuman primates and huma...

Positron emission tomography (PET) was used to investigate differences in neural plasticity associated with learning a unique motor task in patients with schizophrenia and healthy volunteers. Working with a robotic manipulandum, subjects learned reaching movements in a force field. Visual cues were provided to guide the reaching movements. PET rCBF measures were acquired while participants lear...

Objective Here we investigate the process of neurodegeneration in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The relationship between the cortical field spreading of glucose metabolic decreases in the primary motor cortex (PMC) and the progression of corresponding extremity dysfunction was evaluated using [18F] fluoro-deoxyglucose (FDG)-positron emission tomography (PET). Methods Patients with ALS ...

introduction: inferior mandibular bolck anesthesia, some time causes postoperative lip and tongue biting trauma, however, an infiltration injection with a limited anesthetized area, has less complications. the aim of present study is to compare of two techniques (block and infiltration) for class i restorative treatment in primary second molars. methods and materials: fourty children between 5-...