Action Observation Treatment (AOT) is a rehabilitation approach that involves the systematic observation of daily actions followed by their imitation. It exploits the neurophysiological mechanism ascribable to the activation of the system of mirror neurons, so the observation of a finalized action carried out by others determines in the observer an immediate recruitment of the same neural areas designated for the execution of the action itself. AOT-based rehabilitation programs have been effectively applied in numerous adult trials with motor impairment resulting from ischemic stroke, Parkinson’s disease or undergoing orthopaedic surgery and in children with infantile cerebral palsy. However, compared to adults, the experiences reported in the literature in pediatric age are still limited. In our research, we have conducted various studies to test the effectiveness of AOT as an enabling treatment for the motor function of the upper limb in subjects with infantile cerebral palsy, both in a classical setting and in a context of telerehabilitation, and we have observed benefits both at the clinical level (subjects subjected to AOT have presented a significant improvement in manual skills compared to controls) and brain activation (comparing pre-treatment and post-treatment fRMN data, AOT subjects showed significant activation compared to parietal, precentral frontal and opercular area controls during complex object manipulation tasks).
date/time interval:
(January 1, 2011 - )