BCI-Based Facilitation of Cortical Activity Associated to Gait Onset After Single Event Multi-level Surgery in Cerebral Palsy

Motor rehabilitation strategies by means of neuro-modulation paradigms, taking advantage of the motor predictive characteristics of the electroencephalographic signal, are currently subject to extensive research. Such rehabilitation strategies follow a top-down approach in which targeted neurophysiological changes in the central nervous system are expected to induce functional improvement. However, such approach presents a set of specific limitations and barriers in cerebral palsy patients, given that they typically do not have a normal gait and have suffered abnormal brain development. These limitations get even more critical when Single-Event Multilevel Surgery (SEMLS) is performed. After that procedure, surgery patients must re-learn the gait patterns according to a new biomechanical structure. This chapter presents a neuro-modulation paradigm to enhance the reeducation of gait functionality immediately following SEMLS in cerebral palsy patients. The experiments were developed and tested with real patients.