Abstract
Background
Continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS) of the human primary motor cortex (M1) induces
long-term depression (LTD)-like plastic changes in corticospinal excitability, but
several studies have reported high inter-subject variability of this effect. Most
studies use a tonic voluntary contraction of the target muscle before cTBS to set
stimulation intensity; however, it is unclear how this might affect response variability.
Objective
To examine the influence of pre-activation of the target hand muscle on inter-subject
response variability to cTBS of the human M1.
Methods
The response to cTBS was assessed by changes in motor evoked potential (MEP) amplitude
in the right first dorsal interosseous (FDI) muscle. For Study 1, ten healthy subjects
attended two sessions. They were instructed in one session to keep their FDI relaxed
for the entire testing period (pre-relax), and in the other to perform a 2-min 10%
of maximal voluntary tonic contraction 15 min before cTBS (pre-active). For Study
2, data from our previous study were re-analyzed to extend the pre-relax condition
to an additional 26 subjects (total n = 36).
Results
cTBS-induced highly consistent LTD-like MEP depression in the pre-relax condition,
but not in the pre-active condition. Inter-subject response variability increased
in the pre-active condition.
Conclusions
cTBS induces consistent LTD-like plasticity with low inter-subject variability if
pre-activation of the stimulated motor cortex is avoided. This affirms a translational
potential of cTBS in clinical applications that aim at reducing cortical excitability.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: August 13, 2014
Accepted:
August 7,
2014
Received in revised form:
August 7,
2014
Received:
June 2,
2014
Footnotes
This work was supported by a grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC; grant 565302). M.R.G. was supported by a German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD; A/11/96158) Research Grant and Australian Postgraduate Award(APA), and is an Alzheimer's Australia Dementia Research Foundation (AADRF) Postdoctoral Fellow.
Identification
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© 2014 Elsevier Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
