AUTHOR=Favetta Martina , Romano Alberto , Valè Nicola , Cieslik Blazej , Federico Sara , Girolami Alessia , Mazzarotto Deborah , Pregnolato Giorgia , Righetti Anna , Salvalaggio Silvia , Castelli Enrico , Smania Nicola , Bargellesi Stefano , Kiper Pawel , Petrarca Maurizio 

TITLE=A scoping review of scientific concepts concerning motor recovery after stroke as employed in clinical trials

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Neurology

VOLUME=Volume 14 - 2023

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neurology/articles/10.3389/fneur.2023.1221656

DOI=10.3389/fneur.2023.1221656

ISSN=1664-2295

ABSTRACT=The scientific literature on post stroke rehabilitation is remarkably vast. In the last decades dozens of rehabilitation approaches have been investigated. However sometimes it is challenging to trace new experimental interventions back to some of the known models of motor control and sensorimotor learning. This scoping review aims to investigate motor control models' diffusion among the literature on motor recovery after stroke.
We performed a literature search on Medline, Cochrane, Web of Science, Embase, and Scopus databases. The last search was conducted in September 2023. This scoping review included articles published in English, as full-paper in peer-reviewed journals, and which provided rehabilitation interventions based on motor control or motor learning frameworks for at least one individual with stroke. For each study, we identified the theoretical framework the authors used to design the experimental treatment. To this aim we used a previously proposed classification of the known models of motor control, dividing them in the following categories: neuroanatomy, robotics, self-organization and ecological context.  
2185 studies were originally considered in this scoping review. After the screening process, we included and analyzed 45 papers. 20 studies were randomized controlled trials, 12 case series, 4 case reports, 8 observational longitudinal pilot study and 1 uncontrolled trial. Only 10 studies explicitly declared the reference theorical model. Considering their classification, 21 studies referred to the robotics motor control model, 12 to the self-organization model, 8 to the neuroanatomy model and 4 to the ecological model. Our results showed that most of rehabilitative interventions purposed in stroke rehabilitation have no clear theoretical bases on motor control and motor learning models. We suggest this is an issue that deserves attention when designing new experimental interventions in stroke rehabilitation.