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CLINICAL TRIAL article
Front. Neurol.
Sec. Artificial Intelligence in Neurology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fneur.2025.1542827
This article is part of the Research Topic Modeling Physical Activities, Behavioral Patterns, and Symptoms in Aging and Neurological Disorders via Novel Sensing and AI Techniques View all articles
Effects of Intermittent Theta Burst Stimulation on Upper Limb Motor Recovery in Early Stroke Patients: An fNIRS Study
Provisionally accepted- Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, Tianjin, China
Objective: To explore the recovery of upper limb motor function and the changes in cortical functional connectivity in patients with early subcortical small infarcts accompanied by severe upper limb motor dysfunction (PESSUM) after intermittent theta burst stimulation (iTBS) via functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and to explore the related mechanisms.Methods: We enrolled 56 subcortical ischemic stroke patients with FMA-UE ≤28 and randomly assigned them to receive either genuine (TG, n=29) or sham (CG, n=23) iTBS plus standard rehabilitation over 8 days. fNIRS was used to monitor cerebral HbO, HbD, and HbT concentrations, and RSFC changes were analyzed. The FMA-UE and MBI scores were used to evaluate upper limb motor function and daily activities. Intergroup comparisons were conducted using independent samples t tests, whereas intragroup comparisons were performed using paired samples t tests or Mann-Whitney U tests. The trend of the RSFC changes was analyzed via repeated-measures Analysis of Variance(ANOVA).Results: Both groups showed significant improvements in FMA-UE and MBI scores postintervention (P < 0.001). The TG had higher MBI scores than the CG (p = 0.005). fNIRS revealed accelerated cyclical changes in cortical activity in the TG. Conclusion: iTBS significantly improved motor function and daily living ability in stroke patients, supporting a role for iTBS in promoting neural repair by accelerating cortical recovery cycles. This study provides evidence that iTBS is an effective rehabilitation strategy poststroke.
Keywords: fNIRS1, stroke2, Resting-state3, iTBS4, tms5
Received: 10 Dec 2024; Accepted: 11 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu, Wang, Li and Wan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Chunxiao Wan, Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, Tianjin, China
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