Vincent Cabibel, a doctorate student at Euromov and CIFRE service
of Group 5 Health research thesis received an acknowlegement at the European
Respiratory Congress (affiliated with the European Respiratory Society), which
is one of the two world congresses in pneumology, which took place in Madrid
from September 28th to October 2nd.
Vincent presented his final thesis topic titled « Decreased brain
interhemispheric connectivity in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients
».
This study evaluated whether patients with COPD had interhemispheric
connectivity damage, connectivity damage can limit activation of important
brain areas and in turn limit the voluntary strength of muscles.
The goal of this research is to identify central nervous system characteristics
that are connected to muscle weakness; by comparing healthly and COPD
participant brain and muscle functionality, lower level central nervous system
attributes involved with COPD can be identified.
Muscle weakness is an important topic of interest because it is a strong
predictor of mortality for COPD patients. Muscle weakness limits movement
and the ability to exercise, thus diminishing autonomy and longevity of live.