Brain Plasticity and Emotion Recognition in Patients With Facial Palsy Before & After Surgical Rehabilitation: MEG Study

NCT ID: NCT06809127

Last Updated: 2026-01-26

Study Results

Results pending

The study team has not published outcome measurements, participant flow, or safety data for this trial yet. Check back later for updates.

Basic Information

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Recruitment Status

COMPLETED

Clinical Phase

NA

Total Enrollment

16 participants

Study Classification

INTERVENTIONAL

Study Start Date

2017-06-26

Study Completion Date

2023-02-27

Brief Summary

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Facial palsy (of one hemiface) affects the sensorimotor representation of the face of the patients, and possibly also their mental representation of emotional facial expressions. Three surgical techniques are performed to rehabilitate the face motricity in patients with severe facial palsy: Facio-facial anastomosis (AFF), Hypoglosso-facial anastomosis (AHF), and Lengthening temporalis myoplasty (LTM). Our objective is to study brain plasticity and facial emotion recognition in patients with facial palsy before and after surgical rehabilitation, using non invasive magnetoencephalography (MEG) recording during motor and emotion recognition tasks.

Detailed Description

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Facial palsy (of one hemiface) affects the sensorimotor representation of the face of the patients, and possibly also their mental representation of emotional facial expressions. Patients with severe facial palsy can benefit from surgical rehabilitation, allowing them to recover the motor and expressive function of the face. Three surgical techniques are performed to rehabilitate facial palsy: Facio-facial anastomosis (AFF), Hypoglosso-facial anastomosis (AHF), and Lengthening temporalis myoplasty (LTM). Prinicipal objective is to study brain plasticity and facial emotion recognition in patients with facial palsy before and after surgical rehabilitation. For this, the investigators will use magnetoencephalography (MEG), which is a non-invasive brain imaging method with high temporal and good spatial resolution.

1. First objective is to characterize the brain plasticity at a global level, independently of the surgical technique used. The investigators will use simple motor tasks consisting in performing different facial movements and a control index flexion task to examine the cortical plasticity associated with the restauration of the motor and expressive function of the face in patients with facial palsy.
2. Second objective is to examine if the brain magnetic responses associated with the recognition of emotional faces are modified in the paralyzed patients. The investigators will study the brain responses to angry, sad, happy, and neutral faces in a simple emotion recognition task.

Twenty patients with facial palsy will be included in the study. They will undergo two visits, during which MEG will be recorded in two types of tasks: motor task and emotion recognition task (see below). One visit will take place before surgery. The second visit will take place after the surgical intervention and the face motor rehabilitation, 3 to 18 months after the 1st visit.

MOTOR TASK: The motor task will comprise 5 types of simple movements: eye blinks, smiling, tongue protraction, teeth greeting, index flexion. These movements will be performed repetitively - at a pace of about 1 movement every 2 second - in separate, randomly alternating, blocks of 24 movements of each type, for a total of 120 movements of each type.

EMOTION RECOGNITION TASK: A total of 320 faces will be presented to the patients. The faces will be distributed in 5 blocks of 16 different faces (8 male, 8 female), displaying each of 4 emotional expressions: happiness, anger, sadness, and neutral expression. Occasional suprised target faces will be added. The patient's task will be to report the occurrence of those faces by pressing a button in his/her dominant hand. The stimuli will be presented in random order in each block.

The investogators will analyze neuromagnetic activities at the sensor and source levels during the motor tasks (primary objective) and in response to the faces (secondary objective).

Conditions

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Facial Palsy Surgery

Study Design

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Allocation Method

NA

Intervention Model

SINGLE_GROUP

Primary Study Purpose

BASIC_SCIENCE

Blinding Strategy

NONE

Study Groups

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Behavioral tasks with MEG recording

1. MOTOR TASK: Five types of simple movements will be performed: eye blinks, smiling, tongue protraction, teeth greeting, index flexion. A total of 120 movements of each type will be performed in a set of five blocks interspersed with short breaks.
2. EMOTION RECOGNITION TASK: Four emotional expressions will be presented: happiness, anger, sadness, and neutral expression. A total of 320 face stimuli will be presented in 5 blocks interspersed with short breaks. Occasional target faces displaying a suprised expression will be added. The patient's task will be to report the occurrence of those faces by pressing a button in his/her dominant hand.

Group Type OTHER

Behavioral tasks with MEG recording

Intervention Type DEVICE

The patients will undergo two visits, during which MEG will be recorded in two types of behavioral tasks: motor task and emotion recognition task. One visit will take place before surgery. The second visit will take place after the surgical intervention and the face motor rehabilitation, 3 to 18 months after the 1st visit.

Interventions

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Behavioral tasks with MEG recording

The patients will undergo two visits, during which MEG will be recorded in two types of behavioral tasks: motor task and emotion recognition task. One visit will take place before surgery. The second visit will take place after the surgical intervention and the face motor rehabilitation, 3 to 18 months after the 1st visit.

Intervention Type DEVICE

Eligibility Criteria

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Inclusion Criteria

* No history of psychiatric illness
* Severe facial palsy (V or VI grade on House and Brackman scale)
* No evolutive neurologic pathology beside the lesion of the VIIth nerve
* Signature of informed consent
* Being a member of, or beneficiary of, a social security scheme

Exclusion Criteria

* Evolutive neurological disease outside the lesion of the VIIth nerve
* General pathology leading to neuropathy
* Person unable to express his/her consent
* Adult under a legal protection measure
* Adult deprived of liberty by judicial or administrative decision.
* Adult participating in another research protocol involving the human person or subjected to a period of exclusion from another research
* Claustrophobia
* Implants or metallic objects (including eyeglasses) that are susceptible to pertrubate the MEG signal
* Treatment with known action on the central nervous system (Excessive recreational use of psychotropic drugs, ongoing benzodiazepine therapy)
Minimum Eligible Age

20 Years

Maximum Eligible Age

70 Years

Eligible Sex

ALL

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Sponsors

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Fondation des Gueules Cassées

UNKNOWN

Sponsor Role collaborator

Institut National de la Santé Et de la Recherche Médicale, France

OTHER_GOV

Sponsor Role lead

Responsible Party

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Responsibility Role SPONSOR

Principal Investigators

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Frédéric TANKERE, MD, PhD

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris

Locations

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Frederic TANKERE

Paris, , France

Site Status

Countries

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France

References

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Foirest C, Gatignol P, Bernat I, Lamas G, Tankere F. [Lengthening temporalis myoplasty for facial palsy reanimation after parotid surgery]. Rev Laryngol Otol Rhinol (Bord). 2013;134(4-5):259-65. French.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 25252584 (View on PubMed)

Garmi R, Labbe D, Coskun O, Compere JF, Benateau H. Lengthening temporalis myoplasty and brain plasticity: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study. Ann Chir Plast Esthet. 2013 Aug;58(4):271-6. doi: 10.1016/j.anplas.2013.03.002. Epub 2013 Apr 23.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 23623628 (View on PubMed)

Leonetti JP, Anderson DE, Marzo SJ, Origitano TC, Petruzzelli GJ. Intratemporal Grafting of the Facial Nerve following Lateral Skull Base Tumor Resection. Skull Base. 2007 May;17(3):181-6. doi: 10.1055/s-2007-977464.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 17973031 (View on PubMed)

Memarian N, Ferrari P, Macdonald MJ, Cheyne D, De Nil LF, Pang EW. Cortical activity during speech and non-speech oromotor tasks: a magnetoencephalography (MEG) study. Neurosci Lett. 2012 Oct 3;527(1):34-9. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2012.08.030. Epub 2012 Aug 25.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 22926020 (View on PubMed)

Miki K, Kakigi R. Magnetoencephalographic study on facial movements. Front Hum Neurosci. 2014 Jul 29;8:550. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2014.00550. eCollection 2014.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 25120453 (View on PubMed)

Nakahara H, Nakasato N, Kanno A, Murayama S, Hatanaka K, Itoh H, Yoshimoto T. Somatosensory-evoked fields for gingiva, lip, and tongue. J Dent Res. 2004 Apr;83(4):307-11. doi: 10.1177/154405910408300407.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 15044504 (View on PubMed)

Nakamura A, Yamada T, Goto A, Kato T, Ito K, Abe Y, Kachi T, Kakigi R. Somatosensory homunculus as drawn by MEG. Neuroimage. 1998 May;7(4 Pt 1):377-86. doi: 10.1006/nimg.1998.0332.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 9626677 (View on PubMed)

Nakasato N, Itoh H, Hatanaka K, Nakahara H, Kanno A, Yoshimoto T. Movement-related magnetic fields to tongue protrusion. Neuroimage. 2001 Oct;14(4):924-35. doi: 10.1006/nimg.2001.0881.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 11554811 (View on PubMed)

Rijntjes M, Tegenthoff M, Liepert J, Leonhardt G, Kotterba S, Muller S, Kiebel S, Malin JP, Diener HC, Weiller C. Cortical reorganization in patients with facial palsy. Ann Neurol. 1997 May;41(5):621-30. doi: 10.1002/ana.410410511.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 9153524 (View on PubMed)

Salmelin R, Sams M. Motor cortex involvement during verbal versus non-verbal lip and tongue movements. Hum Brain Mapp. 2002 Jun;16(2):81-91. doi: 10.1002/hbm.10031.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 11954058 (View on PubMed)

Suzuki M, Wasaka T, Inui K, Kakigi R. Reappraisal of field dynamics of motor cortex during self-paced finger movements. Brain Behav. 2013 Nov;3(6):747-62. doi: 10.1002/brb3.186. Epub 2013 Oct 17.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 24363977 (View on PubMed)

Tankere F, Bernat I, Vitte E, Lamas G, Soudant J, Maisonobe T, Bouche P, Fournier E, Willer JC. [The hypolossal-facial anastomosis in man. A model for studying peripheral and central nervous system plasticity]. Rev Med Liege. 2004;59 Suppl 1:91-103. French.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 15244163 (View on PubMed)

Vvedensky VL, Prokofyev AO. Timing of Cortical Events Preceding Voluntary Movement. Neural Comput. 2016 Feb;28(2):286-304. doi: 10.1162/NECO_a_00802. Epub 2015 Dec 14.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 26654207 (View on PubMed)

Willer JC, Tankere F, Maisonobe T, Bernat I, Lamas G, Soudant J, Vitte E, Bouche P, Fournier E. Hypoglossal-facial anastomosis induced central plastic changes in the blink reflex circuitry. Mov Disord. 2002;17 Suppl 2:S53-7. doi: 10.1002/mds.10060. No abstract available.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 11836756 (View on PubMed)

Yang TT, Gallen CC, Schwartz BJ, Bloom FE. Noninvasive somatosensory homunculus mapping in humans by using a large-array biomagnetometer. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1993 Apr 1;90(7):3098-102. doi: 10.1073/pnas.90.7.3098.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 8464929 (View on PubMed)

Hervochon R, Chaumon M, Ziri D, Foirest C, Schwartz D, George N, Tankere F. Cerebral Plasticity after Lengthening Temporalis Myoplasty in Facial Palsy: A Magnetoencephalography Study. Facial Plast Surg Aesthet Med. 2025 Mar-Apr;27(2):145-147. doi: 10.1089/fpsam.2023.0235. Epub 2024 May 13. No abstract available.

Reference Type RESULT
PMID: 38738297 (View on PubMed)

Other Identifiers

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2016-A01861-50

Identifier Type: REGISTRY

Identifier Source: secondary_id

C16-70

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id

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