Whole body vibration induces basal ganglia activation in young healthy individuals

Abstract in full text

Background: We previously performed a double-blind controlled study of stochastic whole body vibration (SWBV) in Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients and found improvement of bradykinesia and postural stability in the treatment group (Kaut O et al., 2011), suggesting that SWBV may offer a supplementation to canonical treatment strategies of PD motor symptoms. The mechanisms of SWBV that cause those positive effects on movement dysfunction are not yet understood. We performed a fMRI study to analyze putative specific patterns of cerebral activation induced by SWBV. Methods: Twenty healthy volunteers were allocated either to the experimental or sham group, respectively (4 male, 6 female, mean age 23,4±3,6 vs. 5 male, 5 female, mean age 24,4±3,0). The experimental group received 2 cycles of stochastic SWBV using the SR-Zeptor® device on two days, each cycle consisting of 6 stimulus trains of 60 seconds duration (frequency 7 Hz) and 60 seconds resting time between stimuli. Patients allocated to the sham group received a sham treatment with 1 Hz. On day 1 a baseline 1,5T fMRI was performed in resting state and finger tapping test. A second fMRI was performed after application of SWBV as sham or verum treatment.

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