The research group is acting in the BDH-Klinik Greifswald, a rehabilitation-oriented hospital, An-Institute of the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt Universität Greifswald and member of the neuroscience department. The centre with 144 beds and a 20 beds day care clinic serves a wide variety of neurological patients with a need for (acute care and) rehabilitation. Prof. Dr. med. Thomas Platz is head and medical director of the BDH-Klinik Greifswald with an Neurorehabilitation centre, a Spinal Cord Injury unit, an Intensive Care Unit, a day care clinic as well as a botulinum toxin clinic.

A main scientific interest of the research group is motor rehabilitation especially after stroke. Specific topics are the development and evaluation of assessment tools for functional motor deficits, clinical research regarding mechanisms of motor control deficits, the development of training techniques and technical rehabilitation aids to ameliorate functional deficits and to promote motor recovery.

Prof. Dr. med. T. Platz is leading the neurorehabilitation research group, is an active member of the German ‘Kompetenznetz’ for stroke (rehabilitation sub-net) and leader of the special interest group “clinical pathways” of the World Federation of Neurorehabilitation. Members of the research group are M. Christel, PhD, S. Roschka, ET, and the psychologist F. Holtz.

Combined high-resolution structural MR-based individual head and brain models, tractography analyses (DTI) and transcranial magnetic are established to assess the status of the motor system in post-stroke patients. The methodology is used for advanced studies of (the intact and damaged parts of) the motor system after stroke.

There is increasing laboratory evidence that an imbalance of excitability between lesioned and non-lesioned hemisphere might exist after unilateral focal brain damage, i.e. an abnormal persistance of an interhemispheric inhibitory influence of the motor cortex of non-lesioned hemisphere on the motor cortex of the lesioned hemisphere. This imbalance might negatively affect the lesioned hemisphereÂ’s capacity for functional motor recovery. Methods of physical stimulation such as neuronavigation-based repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation for specific (focal) brain areas (rTMS), have been reported that were able to influence the excitability of the motor cortices of both the lesioned and the non-lesioned hemisphere in a direction that could reduce the above mentioned imbalance of excitability between lesioned and non-lesioned hemisphere and could thereby promote recovery after stroke. Brain stimulation combined with training strategies might become a therapeutic approach to enhance motor recovery after stroke. The neurorehabilitation research group engages in work on brain stimulation in stroke patients. Specific motor cortex areas will be stimulated followed by a specific motor training schedule. Stimulation protocols will be checked for their clinical applicability and effectiveness.

Prof. Dr. med. Thomas Platz [WP leader]

Dr. M. Christel [Coworker]

S. Roschka [ET, Coworker]

F. Holtz [Psychologist, Coworker]

Prof. John Rothwell

Sobell Department of Motor Neuroscience and Movement Disorders, Institute of Neurology, Queen Square, London

Dr. Alexander T. Sack

Assistant Professor, Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology, Maastricht University, the Netherlands