Vicarious Learning Blog

Observational Learning in Stroke Patients

The website ClinicalTrial.gov has a latest update on the longitudinal study into Observational Learning in Stroke Patients, being conducted by National Institutes of Health Clinical Center (CC)

The study started in May, 2005 and is now looking for volunteers for the next wave of the study. Their target is for 60 individuals to take part during this phase. The purpose of the study is:

This study will determine how people who have had a stroke learn to perform a movement by observation, as compared with people who have not had a stroke. Normally, a person learns a new hand movement automatically by observing the movement performed by others. Improvement with practice also relies on visual feedback. This "observational training" - i.e., the repeated observation of a movement - is sufficient for normal individuals to learn a movement. This study will examine brain activity related to motor learning in stroke patients and in healthy control subjects to see whether stroke patients process visual-motor information the same way normal subjects do.
Normal volunteers and stroke patients between 18 and 75 years of age may be eligible for this study. Patients must have had paralysis on one side of the body due to a stroke that occurred at least 3 months before entering the study. Candidates who have not had a recent health screening will have a clinical and neurological examination.

Participants undergo the following procedures:
- Brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), if one has not been done recently. This test uses a strong magnetic field and radio waves to obtain images of body organs and tissues. The subject lies on a table that can slide in and out of the cylindrical scanner and wears earplugs to muffle loud noises caused by switching of magnetic fields. Scanning time varies from 20 minutes to 3 hours, with most sessions lasting 45 to 90 minutes.

- Task training. The subject practices the task to be performed during functional MRI (see below). The subject makes finger tapping movements, then watches finger movements on a video screen for several minutes, during which time the movie stops from time to time without warning. When the movie stops, the subject must reproduce the last finger movement that appeared on the screen. During this session, the electrical signals of the subject's forearm muscles are recorded at the skin surface. This session lasts up to 3 hours.
- Functional MRI. The subject undergoes MRI scanning while performing the same tasks done in the training session. This session lasts about 3 hours.

This research also points to earlier work:

• Boyd LA, Winstein CJ. Implicit motor-sequence learning in humans following unilateral stroke: the impact of practice and explicit knowledge. Neurosci Lett. 2001 Jan 26;298(1):65-9.
• Byrne RW, Russon AE. Learning by imitation: a hierarchical approach. Behav Brain Sci. 1998 Oct;21(5):667-84; discussion 684-721. Review.

Posted at 01:57PM Jun 24, 2008 by Finbar Dineen in General  |  Comments[0]