Efeitos da terapia motora baseada em movimentos de dança nas funções da teoria da mente e do ritmo Mu de pessoas com doença de Parkinson

Abstract

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that affects brain regions whose neural circuitry is responsible for controlling voluntary movements. In addition to motor symptoms, PD patients have non-motor symptoms that drastically affect their quality of life. These include cognitive alterations, among which deficits in working memory, deficits in executive functions and in the ability to deduce the mental states of others (Theory of Mind: ToM) stand out, and may also be related to the functions of mirror neurons (MN). The MN are neurons activated when a person performs or observes a given action, thus performing “internal” simulation of the observed acts, a necessary process for the ability to recognize emotions and intentions in the ToM. Their activity is influenced by prior training of observed motor actions and can be recorded using electroencephalography (EEG) through changes in the Mu band wave amplitudes (alpha 1 waves) detected when an individual observes the actions of another person. The present work investigated the effects of motor therapy on electroencephalographic activity and its correlations with MT functions in patients affected by PD. For this purpose, electroencephalographic evaluations were performed to investigate desynchronization patterns characteristic of mirror neuron activity, in addition to the Reading the Mind in the Eyes (RME) and Faux Pas Recognition (FPR) tests. We evaluated patients diagnosed with PD (n=09), under pharmacological regimen, Hoehn and Yahr 2-4, of both sexes and with mean age of 62.9 ± 7.1 years and mean of 5.8 ± 1.3 years of diagnosis , in time windows before joining the project after twelve months of participation in 2 weekly sessions of motor therapy in dance. Tabulated data were analyzed using Student's t-test. No significant differences were observed in the evaluation parameters of the FPR test in the Test and Retest temporal windows, whereas in the RMT test the average score obtained by the participants in the Test was 9.7 points, while in the Retest the average was 11.3 points with observed significance (p=0.0148), whereas electroencephalographic statistical analysis (TRPs) showed significant results in the level of desynchronization of alpha 1 waves (p=0.014 and p=0.010) during specific electrophysiological evaluation. The data showed that although the individuals did not show improvement in performance in most components of the analyzed TM tests, the electrophysiological results indicate alteration of specific cortical activity related to the activation of the mirror neuron system, influenced by motor therapy in dance, which may configure then, as an adjuvant therapeutic option in the management of motor and non-motor symptoms of PD.