A Cortico-Muscular Coherence Approach to the Characterization of the Box and Block Test in Physiological and Stroke Conditions

Stroke is a leading cause of death and long-term severe disability in adults worldwide. The Box and Block Test (BBT) is widely employed as a clinical scale to assess the resulting motor impairment. However, the study of such a complex task should not neglect the functional interactions between the central and the peripheral nervous systems. This is the first study where Cortico-Muscular Coherence is used to characterize the BBT. We investigated the EEG and EMG data from fourteen healthy subjects and eleven post-stroke patients. Our results reveal novel insights into the physiological execution of the different motor task phases and the stroke-related alterations, in terms of qualitative brain-muscle connections and quantitative EEG degree index derived from Graph Theory.