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Protocol for coordinate-based meta-analysis of rs-fMRI activity in post-stroke motor dysfunctionNew plan to map brain activity after a stroke
Frontiers in MedicinePublished October 10, 2026DOI ↗Editorial oversight: Dr. Ji-eun Park, MD · Brain, Mind & Pain
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Key Takeaway
Recognize this as a protocol only; no results or practice recommendations are available.
This publication is a protocol for a planned coordinate-based meta-analysis, not a completed review or primary study. It outlines a synthesis of resting-state functional MRI metrics, specifically ALFF, fALFF, or ReHo, in adult ischemic stroke patients with motor dysfunction compared with healthy controls. The primary outcome of interest is regional spontaneous brain activity abnormalities, with secondary attention to motor-network reorganization.
No results are reported in this protocol. The main_results field indicates that regional spontaneous activity findings, effect sizes, absolute numbers, and p values or confidence intervals are not reported. Sample size, setting, follow-up duration, and safety outcomes are also not reported.
Limitations are not reported in the protocol. Funding and conflicts of interest are not reported. The stated practice relevance is to identify convergent areas of local functional alteration, generating testable predictions for future research on post-stroke motor-network reorganization and rehabilitation.
Because this is a protocol, no clinical conclusions can be drawn. Clinicians should interpret it as a methodological plan for future evidence synthesis, not as evidence of diagnostic or therapeutic benefit. The absence of reported results, safety data, and limitations means that no practice recommendations can be made at this time.
When someone suffers a stroke, the brain often struggles to reorganize itself to regain movement. Researchers are planning a large study to better understand these changes. They want to look at specific patterns of spontaneous brain activity to see how the brain adapts after a stroke.
The planned study will focus on adult patients who have lost motor skills due to an ischemic stroke. By comparing their brain activity to healthy individuals, the team hopes to identify exactly where the brain is changing. This could help scientists predict how well a patient might recover during rehabilitation.
Because this is a protocol for a planned study, no final results are available yet. The goal is to create a clearer map of brain activity. This map will help researchers develop better ways to help patients regain their movement and independence in the future.
What this means for you:
A new research plan aims to map brain activity changes to improve future stroke rehabilitation.
Common questions
What is this study trying to find out?
The study aims to identify areas where brain activity changes after a stroke. By looking at these patterns, researchers hope to make better predictions about how the brain reorganizes itself to help patients regain movement and motor skills.
Who is this research for?
This research is designed for adult patients who have experienced an ischemic stroke and have lost motor functions. The goal is to eventually help these patients through better rehabilitation strategies.
IntroductionMost ischemic stroke survivors experience motor deficits, yet the underlying patterns of spontaneous brain activity change remain unclear. Individual rs-fMRI studies on this population have yielded contradictory findings, likely due to small sample sizes and between-study differences in lesion profiles, stroke stage, rehabilitation history, and imaging pipelines. These inconsistencies have not been resolved by existing reviews, many of which combine ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke, pool conceptually distinct rs-fMRI metrics without sufficient stratification, or focus on functional connectivity rather than local spontaneous activity. This protocol plans a coordinate-based meta-analysis restricted to ischemic stroke and local rs-fMRI metrics to address that gap.Methods and analysisThis study will systematically identify and synthesise whole-brain rs-fMRI studies that compared ALFF, fALFF, or ReHo between adult ischemic stroke patients with motor dysfunction and healthy controls. We will search PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Library up to 6 February 2026. To be included, a study must report whole-brain voxel-wise group comparisons and provide stereotactic peak coordinates in MNI or Talairach space. Studies will be excluded if they are non-original reports, case reports or case series, use task-state fMRI or ROI-only analyses, lack extractable standard-space coordinates, involve duplicate or overlapping datasets, include hemorrhagic or mixed stroke without separable ischemic-stroke data, or do not provide clearly extractable motor dysfunction-related data. Two reviewers will independently screen, extract, and assess methodological quality. Using anisotropic effect-size seed-based d mapping (AES-SDM), the quantitative synthesis will pool coordinates to detect convergent patterns of both increased and decreased regional spontaneous activity. Where data allow, we will conduct subgroup analyses, jackknife sensitivity testing, heterogeneity assessment, and meta-regression. The protocol follows the PRISMA-P statement, and the completed review will adhere to PRISMA 2020.ConclusionThis protocol outlines a systematic review and AES-SDM coordinate-based meta-analysis aimed at synthesizing regional spontaneous activity abnormalities in ischemic stroke patients with motor dysfunction. The results should identify convergent areas of local functional alteration, generating testable predictions for future research on post-stroke motor-network reorganization and rehabilitation.Clinical trial registrationhttps://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/view/CRD420261359426, identifier CRD420261359426.
