Have you ever thought about your body’s ability to carry out everyday motor tasks, such as swiftly slicing an apple or walking down a hallway in a perfectly straight line? As mundane as these tasks may seem, there are many people in the world suffering from diseases that affect their movement, motor control, and coordination. These diseases are often, but not limited to, the product of cellular aging, in which our body’s cells undergo pathogenic patterns of degeneration, damage, and mutation. The result of these cellular breakdowns can give rise to diseases such as Parkinson’s Disease, Multiple Sclerosis, and ALS, to name a few.
Researchers are currently finding new treatments and therapies for loss of motor control. One such example comes from the publication, Effects of Noise Electrical Stimulation on Proprioception, Force Control, and Corticomuscular Functional Connectivity, where Dr. Vincent Chen and colleagues investigated whether noise electrical stimulation can improve proprioception, which is the sense of your body’s position, and force control. Both proprioception and force control are dependent on nerve fibers called sensory afferent inputs that take information from the outside world and traduce the information into messages the brain can read. Hence, problems that arise with the proper functioning of nerve fibers produce these motor problems.
Dr. Chen and his team identified from previous research that electrical stimulation can excite these afferent fibers, thus increasing neural firing and improving motor control. Previous research has also shown that noise electrical stimulation can increase the activity of the sensorimotor cortex, the region in the brain that helps our body execute movements. Thus, Dr. Chen and his colleagues carried out two experiments, in which they studied participant’s ability to produce a maximal grip force, obtain a wrist flexion of thirty degrees, and maintain hand contraction, with and without the effect of noise electrical stimulation (applied through an electrode cap) of varying intensities. The results of the experiments showed that both force and joint proprioceptive senses improved with noise electrical stimulation of an optimal intensity. Using EEG, they also observed that the stimulation increased the connectivity between the motor cortex and active muscles. The results of this study show that noise electrical stimulation can be a viable clinical therapy for motor dysfunctions, upon further development.
Likewise, Parkinson's Disease (PD), although traditionally treated through medications such as levodopa, may be co-treated by forms of stimulation similar to noise electrical stimulation. In a review article published by Jessie Siew Pin Leuk and her colleagues, entitled, An Overview of Acoustic-Based Interventions to Improve Motor Symptoms in Parkinson’s Disease, the authors discuss the mechanisms and effectiveness of rhythmic auditory stimulation (RAS) and Vibroacoustic therapy (VAT). RAS plays auditory cues that serve as a metronome for PD patients to adjust to an optimal pace. The auditory cues allow the brain to anticipate and enact the body’s next movement. Some of the reported benefits of RAS have been decreases in slowness of movement and speech impairments. Moreover, VAT works by passively delivering low-frequency sound through mediums such as chairs, and has been reported to decrease tremors in PD patients. Both forms of acoustic therapy may be beneficial to co-implement with oral drugs, as the body can become drug resistant also experience unwanted side effects. Thus, acoustic-based therapy can be implemented as a tool in the everyday lives of PD patients, although much more research needs to be done to confirm its long-term benefits.
Both the research presented by Dr. Chen and reviewed by Jessie Leuk, and their respective colleagues, highlight the possibility of implementing therapies that utilize stimulation, whether that be noise-electrical or acoustic-based, to augment and improve motor control and coordination. While both noise-electrical stimulation and acoustic-based stimulation therapies are slightly different, they both present patients with the possibility of being less dependent on pills that their bodies may eventually stop responding to. Likewise, in treating Parkinson’s disease, where there are limited treatments, this research expands and brings attention to a sect of therapy that can be further developed in the upcoming years to better the lives of those living with age and disease-related loss of motor control.
References:
Chou, L. W., Hou, S. L., Lee, H. M., Fregni, F., Yen, A., Chen, V., Wei, S. H., & Kao, C. L. (2023). Effects of Noise Electrical Stimulation on Proprioception, Force Control, and Corticomuscular Functional Connectivity. IEEE transactions on neural systems and rehabilitation engineering, 31, 2518–2524. https://doi.org/10.1109/TNSRE.2023.3277752
Leuk, J. S. P., Low, L. L. N., & Teo, W.-P. (2020). An Overview of Acoustic-Based Interventions to Improve Motor Symptoms in Parkinson’s Disease. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, 12, 243. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2020.00243
Zhao, M., Marino, M., Samogin, J., Swinnen, S. P., & Mantini, D. (2019). Hand, foot and lip representations in primary sensorimotor cortex: a high-density electroencephalography study. Scientific Reports, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-55369-3
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