Post-Stroke Motor Function Assessment Based on Brain-Muscle Coupling Analysis.

The interaction of information between the brain and muscles is widely present in human activities. Brain-muscle coupling has been proven to quantify the amount of information transmission between the cortex and muscles. Motor dysfunction is a typical sequela of stroke. Accurate quantitative assessment of motor function is the basis for formulating rehabilitation strategies. The application of brain-muscle coupling analysis to stroke patients’ motor evaluation has received extensive attention from researchers. In this study, brain and muscle data were collected synchronously from 6 healthy subjects and 2 stroke patients during an upper limb iso-velocity motion paradigm. Linear brain-muscle coupling results were obtained based on the method of wavelet coherence. The results revealed that CMC during the dynamic force output process predominantly manifested in the gamma band. The CMC strength of stroke patients was significantly lower than that of healthy individuals. Furthermore, stroke patients exhibited a shift of CMC towards the lower frequency band (beta band). This study proves the effectiveness of brain-muscle coupling in quantifying stroke patients’ motor function and has certain value in promoting motor rehabilitation.