- Academic Editor
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Background: Brain plasticity and functional reorganization are the main
mechanisms of stroke rehabilitation and the theoretical basis for transcranial
magnetic therapy. Bimodal balance recovery model suggests that the structural
integrity of neural pathways affects the functional reorganization mode of brain
recovery after stroke. The principal neural pathway that
innervates swallowing is the corticobulbar tract (CBT).
The goal is to
investigate the impact of corticobulbar tract integrity on swallowing function
recovery in post-stroke dysphagia (PSD) patients treated with repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS).
Methods: Thirty-five patients with
high CBT integrity (relative fractional anisotropy (rFA)