Acute improvement of contralateral hand function after deafferentation

To study cortical re-organisation after acute hand deafferentation, we investigated 10 experimental subjects and 10 controls for function in the left hand, before, during and after tourniquet induced anaesthesia of the right hand. fMRI was performed in three experimental subjects. Tourniquet-induced right hand anaesthesia resulted in rapid significant improvement in grip strength, tactile discrimination and perception of touch in the left hand. Tactile discrimination and grip strength improvements remained at least 15 minutes after anaesthesia. fMRI showed increased activation in the right primary motor cortex after anaesthesia. Deafferentation of the hand induces significant improvement in contralateral hand function. This finding may have a potential clinical application for evolving sensory relearning strategies after nerve repair