Best core stabilization exercise to facilitate subcortical neuroplasticity: A functional MRI neuroimaging study.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effects of conscious (ADIM) and subconscious (DNS) core stabilization exercises on cortical changes in adults with core instability.

PARTICIPANTS: Five non-symptomatic participants with core instability.

METHODS: A novel core stabilization task switching paradigm was designed to separate cortical or subcortical neural substrates during a series of DNS or ADIM core stabilization tasks.

RESULTS: fMRI blood BOLD analysis revealed a distinctive subcortical activation pattern during the performance of the DNS, whereas the cortical motor network was primarily activated during an ADIM. Peak voxel volume values showed significantly greater DNS (11.08 ± 1.51) compared with the ADIM (8.81 ± 0.21) (p= 0.043).

CONCLUSION: The ADIM exercise activated the cortical PMC-SMC-SMA motor network, whereas the DNS exercise activated both these same cortical areas and the subcortical cerebellum-BG-thalamus-cingulate cortex network.