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

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.