Professor Robert Chen
Editor-in-Chief, Clinical Neurophysiology
Arnaud Preuilh, Alexandra Lackmy-Vallée, Benoit Béranger, Cécile Galléa, Peter Bede, Giorgia Querin, Pierre-François Pradat, Mélanie Pélégrini-Issac, Véronique Marchand-Pauvert
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is generally considered a motor disorder, although cognitive and behavioral components are also recognized. Patients usually have normal sensory examination, but sensory neurophysiological investigations such as somatosensory evoked potentials have revealed subtle abnormalities. In this volume of Clinical Neurophysiology, Preuilh et al. applied tendon vibration to the first dorsal interosseous muscle and observed that a greater proportion of ALS patients did not perceive kinesthetic sensations compared to controls. Moreover, ALS patients had reduced activation of prefrontal and cerebellar regions measured by functional MRI, and these changes correlated with hand motor disability and cognitive impairment. However, no changes were observed in the primary somatosensory cortex. These findings suggest that assessment of kinesthesia and sensorimotor integration may play a role in the evaluation of ALS patients, and proprioceptive training could potentially be integrated into rehabilitation protocols.