Study Status: Recruiting
Recruit Status: Recruiting
Study Type: Interventional
Official Title: Can rTMS Enhance Somatosensory Recovery After Stroke?
Brief Summary: Stroke affects over 795,000 Americans every year and has an enormous impact on the well-being of American Veterans with 6,000 new stroke admissions every year. Many of these stroke survivors are living with disabilities that limit their everyday function. One of the major consequences of stroke is loss of sensation which manifests as inability to perceive touch, temperature, pain or limb movement. Lack of sensation hinders full functional recovery. Current treatments for sensory loss produce only limited improvements and do not achieve full recovery. Therefore, it is critical to develop new therapies to re-train sensory function. The investigators propose to evaluate a novel non-invasive brain stimulation treatment called repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS). The effects of this technique on motor deficits following stroke have been studied, however rTMS for the treatment of sensory loss has not been examined to date. The investigators' study will examine for the first time if rTMS of a sensory brain region can improve sensory function in chronic stroke survivors.