A novel fMRI paradigm suggests that pedaling-related brain activation is altered after stroke

I have absolutely no clue what the point of this research was. Of course brain activation is altered after a stroke, the brain was damaged. DUH!
http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00320/full?

Stéphanie Lefebvre^1,2, Laurence Dricot¹, Patrice Laloux^1,2, Wojciech Gradkowski^3,4, Philippe Desfontaines⁵, Frédéric Evrard⁶, André Peeters⁷, Jacques Jamart⁸ and Yves Vandermeeren^1,2,9*

• ¹Institute of Neuroscience, Université Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium
• ²Neurology Department, CHU Dinant-Godinne UCL Namur, Université Catholique de Louvain, Yvoir, Belgium
• ³Imagilys, Brussels, Belgium
• ⁴Faculty of Electronics and Information Technology, Institute of Radioelectronics, Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw, Poland
• ⁵Neurology Department, Site Saint-Joseph, CHC, Liège, Belgium
• ⁶Neurology Department, Clinique Saint-Pierre, Ottignies, Belgium
• ⁷Service de Neurologie, Unité Neuro-Vasculaire, Cliniques Universitaires Saint Luc UCL, Université Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium
• ⁸Scientific Support Unit, CHU Dinant-Godinne UCL Namur, Université Catholique de Louvain, Yvoir, Belgium
• ⁹Louvain Bionics, Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

Motor skill learning is critical in post-stroke motor recovery, but little is known about its underlying neural substrates. Recently, using a new visuomotor skill learning paradigm involving a speed/accuracy trade-off in healthy individuals we identified three subpopulations based on their behavioral trajectories: fitters (in whom improvement in speed or accuracy coincided with deterioration in the other parameter), shifters (in whom speed and/or accuracy improved without degradation of the other parameter), and non-learners. We aimed to identify the neural substrates underlying the first stages of motor skill learning in chronic hemiparetic stroke patients and to determine whether specific neural substrates were recruited in shifters versus fitters. During functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), 23 patients learned the visuomotor skill with their paretic upper limb. In the whole-group analysis, correlation between activation and motor skill learning was restricted to the dorsal prefrontal cortex of the damaged hemisphere (DLPFC_damh: r = −0.82) and the dorsal premotor cortex (PMd_damh: r = 0.70); the correlations was much lesser (−0.16 < r > 0.25) in the other regions of interest. In a subgroup analysis, significant activation was restricted to bilateral posterior parietal cortices of the fitters and did not correlate with motor skill learning. Conversely, in shifters significant activation occurred in the primary sensorimotor cortex_damh and supplementary motor area_damh and in bilateral PMd where activation changes correlated significantly with motor skill learning (r = 0.91). Finally, resting-state activity acquired before learning showed a higher functional connectivity in the salience network of shifters compared with fitters (qFDR < 0.05). These data suggest a neuroplastic compensatory reorganization of brain activity underlying the first stages of motor skill learning with the paretic upper limb in chronic hemiparetic stroke patients, with a key role of bilateral PMd.

More at link, maybe you'll be able to understand this.