| Popis: |
Chronic low back pain is a difficult condition to treat due to its ambiguous nature. The pain that many people experience often does not correlate to a structural problem. Sufferers tend to experience different trunk and core muscle activation patterns, which leads researchers to believe that the brain creates adaptations to compensate for pain. Little research has been compiled on the motor activation patterns in the brain to look into this theory. This study uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to establish a novel motor neuroimaging paradigm for trunk and core musculature in healthy subjects during a trunk isometric task. Six healthy young adults (male, n=3; female, n=3)(age = 22.67 ± 3.14) with no significant history of low back pain within 8 weeks were recruited as participants. Participants were asked to perform a sustained, isometric trunk motor task while lying supine in an fMRI scanner. The total, mean, and maximum blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) signals were assessed in the motor cortex. An intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and one sample t-test were conducted to assess if there were significant differences during the first and second scanning sessions between each participant and between all participants. The ICC(3,k)=0.873 for 30% MVIC target intensity indicates strong test-re-test reliability, and the 40% and 50% target intensities also demonstrated excellent test-re-test reliability. However, associated 95% confidence intervals were wide. The one sample t-test determined there was no significant change between sessions for all participants (p>0.05). The ICC and one sample t-test indicated that the methods have good test-re-test reliability and no significant difference between scanning sessions, however, the small sample size makes it difficult to confidently say the methods are reliable. |
