Early Brain Plasticity - Network Reorganization in the "Healthy" Hemisphere?

01/11/2017 to 31/10/2019

The theoretical framework of early plasticity research is shifting from a modular towards a systemic view. Focal unilateral brain lesions acquired pre-/perinatally or during childhood provide an optimal model for investigating the developing brain’s potential to compensate tissue loss by functional reorganization. In the last decades, data and models on structural and functional reorganization of somatosensory functions and on functional reorganization of language have been provided. In consequence, a prominent research question concerns the effects of a lesion on the formation of contralesional structural and functional networks. The main goals of the proposed study are to investigate
1. how an early unilateral lesion affects loss and gain in volume (non-specific hemispherical vs. specific fibre tracts) in the contralesional hemisphere,
2. how performance is related to the integrity of reorganized contralesional networks, and
3. if there is a modulating effect of age at lesion and presence/absence of epileptic activity on the formation of contralesional networks