Description and purpose
The present project addresses the issue of the improvement in hand motor skills and brain functional changes following the application of a training based on observation/imitation of different visual models of hand actions, one providing all physical and contextual features (full vision, FV), the other providing only kinematics cues (point-light displays, PLDs), in both healthy individuals and children with Unilateral Cerebral Palsy (UCP).
Purpose
1) evaluation, in healthy individuals, using 3T fMRI techniques, of the behavioral and brain functional changes following a short or a long term Action Observation Training based on the two types of hand models (FV, PLDs);
2) evaluation in UCP children of the effects of a short-term motor learning task, based on observation/imitation of grasping actions performed by the two hand models.
3) Collection of specific data, based on questionnaire, for an early Health Technology Assessments (HTA)
Expected results
The behavioral and fMRI studies will allow to show whether the kinematic features of observed actions, by imitation, may improve hand motor skills and produce a differential activation of the mirror neuron system, in both healthy participants and UCP children.
The fMRI and behavioral results, coupled with the questionnaire data, will be used for an early HTA aimed at evaluating the feasibility and impact on public healthcare of an fMRI-based approach.
Achieved results
- Study on healthy subjects observing complex actions executed with the two hand models and imitate them inside the fMRI scanner. Data acquisition completed; data analyses ongoing;
- fMRI Study on healthy subjects observing hand actions before and after a week training of observation/imitation based on the two hand models. Almost completed.
- Preparation of the observation/imitation fMRI study on UCP children; starting patient recruitment
- Preparation of questionnaires for early HTA.
