title: Maladaptive change of body representation in the brain after damage to central or peripheral nervous system.
abstract: Our brain has great flexibility to cope with various changes in the environment. Use-dependent plasticity, a kind of functional plasticity, plays the most important role in this ability to cope. For example, the functional recovery of paretic limb motor movement during post-stroke rehabilitation depends mainly on how much it is used. Patients with hemiparesis, however, tend to gradually disuse the paretic limb because of its motor impairment. Decreased use of the paretic hand then leads to further functional decline brought by use-dependent plasticity. To break this negative loop, body representation, which is the conscious and unconscious information regarding body state stored in the brain, is key for using the paretic limb because it plays an important role in selecting an effector while a motor program is generated. In an attempt to understand body representation in the brain, we reviewed animal and human literature mainly on the alterations of the sensory maps in the primary somatosensory cortex corresponding to the changes in limb usage caused by peripheral or central nervous system damage.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Tohoku University, Miyagi, Japan. Electronic address: oouchida@med.tohoku.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Yutaka
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Oouchida
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, Tohoku University, Miyagi, Japan.
authors.forename: Tamami
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Sudo
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Informatics, Tokyo, Japan; The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, Japan.
authors.forename: Tetsunari
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Inamura
authors.affiliation: Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Tohoku University, Miyagi, Japan.
authors.forename: Naofumi
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Tanaka
authors.affiliation: School of Medicine, Kyorin University, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Yukari
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ohki
authors.affiliation: Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Tohoku University, Miyagi, Japan; Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, Tohoku University, Miyagi, Japan.
authors.forename: Shin-ichi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Izumi
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001828:Body Image; D002493:Central Nervous System Diseases / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D009473:Neuronal Plasticity; D010291:Paresis / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology; D010523:Peripheral Nervous System Diseases / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D010591:Phantom Limb / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology; D013003:Somatosensory Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology*
keywords: Body representation; Phantom limb; Rehabilitation; Sensory map; Use-dependent plasticity