Correlates of BOLD-magnitude with finger sequence frequency in recovered patients after subcortical stroke

Imaging studies demonstrated additional cerebral activation during increasing complexity of finger movements (Gerloff et al., 1998). Patients with lesions of the pyramidal tract present increased activation comparable to those seen in healthy subjects during more complex movement performance (Gerloff et al., 2006). Motor training in contrast results in substantial decrease of cortical activity, which is centered in the primary motor cortex after training (Lotze et al., 2003). Again, a decrease of activation magnitude – especially in secondary motor areas and areas ipsilateral to movement performance (contralesio…