Transfer of cortical motor representation after a perinatal cerebral insult.

In a 16-year-old boy with hemiplegia and severe, intractable epilepsy after a neonatal cerebral ischemic insult, cortical motor control was only equivocally assessed by functional magnetic resonance imaging. Therefore, high-precision navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation was performed, which demonstrated that cortical control of muscles on the paretic side was selectively affected. Leg muscle control was located in the contralateral hemisphere, as expected in healthy individuals, whereas forearm muscles were controlled from both hemispheres, and hand muscles were controlled only from the hemisphere ipsilateral to the paresis.