The role of action observation in rehabilitation of motor deficits

Traditional bottom-up neurorehabilitative approaches to the treatment of motor deficits after stroke are of proven value and have their established place in the treatment schemas. Experimental data suggest that motor observation is capable of activation of the same cortical motor areas that are involved in the performance of the observed actions, constituting a physiologically based top-down mechanism of motor activation. Action observation along with reinforcement by actual action execution combines both bottom-up and top-down approaches and provides a potentially powerful tool for neurorehabilitation. In this…