ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Pediatr.
Sec. Pediatric Neurology
The Characteristics of Cortical Activation During Gait in Children with Spastic Diplegic Cerebral Palsy
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Changzhou De'an Hospital, Changzhou, China
- 2School of Medicine, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China
- 3Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Cerebral palsy (CP) is a prevalent movement disorder caused by brain abnormalities or injuries affecting the developing brain. It affects over 17 million people globally and poses significant challenges in posture balance, and gait control, particularly in children with spastic diplegia CP. This study aims to investigate the differences in cortical activation during walking between children with spastic diplegic CP and children with typical development (CTD), and to explore the associations between cortical activation and gross motor performance. Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), we monitored the cortical activity of 15 participants with spastic diplegic CP and 15 CTD while walking at a self-selected pace. Our results showed significant over-activation in the right prefrontal cortex (RPFC), left prefrontal cortex (LPFC), and right premotor cortex (RPMC) in children with spastic diplegic CP compared to CTD. Additionally, RPMC activation was negatively correlated with gross motor function and walking speed. These findings suggest that children with spastic diplegic cerebral palsy may rely more heavily on cortical compensatory mechanisms during motor planning and control while walking, with increased involvement of the prefrontal and premotor cortices.
Keywords: Cerebral Palsy, cortical activation, CTD, fNIRS, Gait, spastic DCP
Received: 07 Jul 2025; Accepted: 16 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Wang, Zhu, Zhu, Guo, Wang, Zhou, He, Zhu and Lu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Shizhe Zhu
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.