NEURAL AND BIOCHEMICAL ASPECTS IN REHABILITATION TRAINING

Abstract

Physiological training is a well known treatment in rehabilitation and prevention. Endurance training programs are used to optimize cardiovascular functions and thereby reduce the risk of heart diseases or stroke; strength training is efficient to avoid or reduce lower back pain or osteoporosis. However, in the last decade strong experimental evidences suggest that training stimuli are also beneficial in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases (e.g. PD, MS) and neurotraumata (e.g. SCI). At this neurotrophic factors were identified to play a key role. The release function of these substances is highly related to sensory input, especially muscle spindle afferents. As voluntary muscular activation and motor control is impaired in multiple neurological patients and therefore sensory stimulations are reduced, alternative stimulation techniques are of crucial importance. With respect to natural stochastic behavior of nerve cells, neuromuscular activation can be generated using mechanical stochastic resonance (SR) stimulations. These signals are characterized by a coherent wave which is superimposed by noisy influences. Supra-threshold activations result from resonance like behavior between both stochastic signals.