Interindividual variability of the modulatory effects of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation on cortical excitability

By F. Maeda, J. Keenan, J. Tormos, H. Topka, Alvaro Pascual-Leone. Experimental Brain Research, 2000

634 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) appears to have effects on cortical excitability that extend beyond the train of rTMS itself. These effects may be inhibitory or facilitatory and appear to depend on the frequency, intensity, duration and intertrain interval of the rTMS. Many studies assume facilitatory effects of high-frequency rTMS and inhibitory effects of low-frequency rTMS. Nevertheless, the interindividual variability of this modulation of cortical excitability by rTMS has not been systematically investigated. In this study, we applied 240 pulses of rTMS at 90% of the subjects' motor threshold to their motor cortex at different frequencies (1, 10, 15 and 20 Hz) and examined the effects on motor evoked potentials (frequency tuning curve). Although the averaged group data showed a frequency-dependent increase in cortical excitability, each subject had a different pattern of frequency tuning curve, i.e. a different modulatory effect on cortical excitability at different rTMS frequencies. The interindividual variability of these modulatory effects was still high, though less so, when the number of rTMS pulses was increased to 1600. These findings illustrate the degree of variability of the rTMS effects in the human brain.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Neurology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5b63056d120cc59429503b07eea98e4fa65adcba

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Citations in the corpus

Enhanced visual spatial attention ipsilateral to rTMS-induced 'virtual lesions' of human parietal cortex (2001, methodology): “We used an repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) protocol that, when applied to the motor cortex, induces a transient reduction of cortical excitability in most subject”
Plasticity in the human central nervous system. (2006, background): “Although changes in evoked potentials persist after the higherfrequency (5 Hz) trains of stimuli, the effect is not consistent and never lasts long enough to be comparable with LTP (Maeda et al., 2000).”
Preconditioning of Low-Frequency Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation with Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation: Evidence for Homeostatic Plasticity in the Human Motor Cortex (2004, background): “We propose that differences in the recent history of neuronal activity contribute to the marked interindividual variability of the suppressive effect of 1 Hz rTMS on corticospinal excitability in healthy subjects (Maeda et al., 2000b).”
Transcranial magnetic stimulation: new insights into representational cortical plasticity (2002, positive): “For example, Maeda et al. (2000a, 2000b ) reported a facilitation of MEPs for 2 min after the administration of 240 pulses of 20-Hz stimuli at 90% resting threshold.”
Therapeutic application of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation: a review. (2001, background): “Perhaps fortunately, the lasting excitatory effects on cortical excitability produced in rTMS experiments with frequencies in the 5±20 Hz range have been inconsistent (Maeda et al., 2000) and evanescent.”
The role of interneuron networks in driving human motor cortical plasticity. (2013, background): “The day-to-day variation within an individual to TBS protocols has not been examined systematically but by analogy with the effects of rTMS (Maeda et al. 2000; Fratello et al. 2006) is likely to be high.”