Reorganisation of motor networks in the acute post-stroke phase as assessed using serial fMRI

Background: Neuroimaging studies in stroke patients suggest that ipsilateral neural activity in motor areas during movements of the affected hand may be associated with incomplete motor recovery (Ward et al., 2003). There is, however, still a debate on the functional relevance and the time course during which neural activity in contralesional motor areas is upregulated (Johansen-Berg et al., 2002; Nowak et al., 2008). Especially data on the first days after the ischemic event are scarce although considerable recovery of function takes place already in the first weeks. We, hence, designed a longitudinal fMRI stud…