Enhancing neuroplasticity in major depression: A novel 10 Hz-rTMS protocol is more effective than iTBS.

Background: Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is an effective treatment in major depressive disorder (MDD). However, intermittent theta-burst stimulation (iTBS) and rTMS protocols using 10 Hz stimulation frequency might differ in their effect on neuroplasticity and on clinical symptoms. This study compares the effect of iTBS and a novel 10 Hz-rTMS with shortened single session duration, on motor excitability and neuroplasticity and on clinical symptoms in MDD.

Physical Activity Reduces Clinical Symptoms and Restores Neuroplasticity in Major Depression.

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is the most common mental disorder and deficits in neuroplasticity are discussed as one pathophysiological mechanism. Physical activity (PA) enhances neuroplasticity in healthy subjects and improves clinical symptoms of MDD. However, it is unclear whether this clinical effect of PA is due to restoring deficient neuroplasticity in MDD.

Task specific dystonia - a patients' perspective.

Background: Task specific dystonia (TSD) is a subtype of dystonia with no cure and significant limitations on treatments. Few studies have investigated the outcomes of rehabilitative therapy from the patient's perspective.

Purpose Of The Study: This study explored the interventions that patients have utilized and their perceived effectiveness in treating and managing their TSD, specifically musicians' dystonia (MD) and writer's dystonia (WD).

Intensity dependent effect of cognitive training on motor cortical plasticity and cognitive performance in humans.

Intervention-induced neuroplastic changes within the motor or cognitive system have been shown in the human brain. While cognitive and motor brain areas are densely interconnected, it is unclear whether this interconnectivity allows for a shared susceptibility to neuroplastic changes. Using the preparation for a theoretical exam as training intervention that primarily engages the cognitive system, we tested the hypothesis whether neuroplasticity acts across interconnected brain areas by investigating the effect on excitability and synaptic plasticity in the motor cortex.

Sensorimotor deprivation induces interdependent changes in excitability and plasticity of the human hand motor cortex.

Prolonged limb immobilization deprives sensorimotor cortical areas of an important source of excitatory input, as well as of motor output. Previous work has described effects on motor excitability but it is unclear whether motor plasticity is also influenced. In two groups of eight healthy human subjects, the left hand was immobilized for 8 h to induce sensorimotor deprivation of the cortical representation of the abductor pollicis brevis muscle.

The in-the-ear recording concept: user-centered and wearable brain monitoring.

The integration of brain monitoring based on electroencephalography (EEG) into everyday life has been hindered by the limited portability and long setup time of current wearable systems as well as by the invasiveness of implanted systems (e.g. intracranial EEG).

Modulation of proprioceptive integration in the motor cortex shapes human motor learning.

Sensory and motor systems interact closely during movement performance. Furthermore, proprioceptive feedback from ongoing movements provides an important input for successful learning of a new motor skill. Here, we show in humans that attention to proprioceptive input during a purely sensory task can influence subsequent learning of a novel motor task.

Simultaneous intracranial EEG and fMRI of interictal epileptic discharges in humans.

Simultaneous scalp EEG-fMRI measurements allow the study of epileptic networks and more generally, of the coupling between neuronal activity and haemodynamic changes in the brain. Intracranial EEG (icEEG) has greater sensitivity and spatial specificity than scalp EEG but limited spatial sampling. We performed simultaneous icEEG and functional MRI recordings in epileptic patients to study the haemodynamic correlates of intracranial interictal epileptic discharges (IED).

Present and future of simultaneous EEG-fMRI.

The brain's activity can be measured in numerous complementary ways, including electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The simultaneous acquisition of EEG and fMRI was originally developed to make the localization of the generators of often subtle pathological activity commonly observed in EEG recordings of patients with epilepsy more sensitive and spatially accurate by mapping their hemodynamic correlates. Now, the value of the information provided by simultaneous EEG-fMRI is being evaluated in a clinical context, while in parallel, more sophisticated data analysis techniques, e.

Regaining motor control in musician's dystonia by restoring sensorimotor organization.

Professional musicians are an excellent model of long-term motor learning effects on structure and function of the sensorimotor system. However, intensive motor skill training has been associated with task-specific deficiency in hand motor control, which has a higher prevalence among musicians (musician's dystonia) than in the general population. Using a transcranial magnetic stimulation paradigm, we previously found an expanded spatial integration of proprioceptive input into the hand motor cortex [sensorimotor organization (SMO)] in healthy musicians.

Consensus paper: use of transcranial magnetic stimulation to probe motor cortex plasticity in dystonia and levodopa-induced dyskinesia.

Plasticity includes the ability of the nervous system to optimize neuronal activity at a cellular and system level according to the needs imposed by the environment. Neuroplasticity phenomena within sensorimotor cortex are crucial to enhance function to increase skillfulness. Such plasticity may be termed "adaptive" to indicate its ecologically beneficial role.

Differential modulation of motor cortical plasticity and excitability in early and late phases of human motor learning.

Different phases of motor skill learning appear to involve different physiological processes, with long-term potentiation (LTP) occurring at existing synapses in early and cortical reorganization involving synaptogenesis in later phases. Here, we test the evolution of skill learning-dependent changes in motor plasticity and excitability in six subjects trained to perform rapid thumb abductions over 5 d. Plasticity was examined using paired-associative stimulation (PAS) of the median nerve and motor cortex to induce LTP-like "PAS given with an interstimulus interval of 25 ms (PAS25)" or long-term depression (LTD)-like "PAS given with an interstimulus interval of 10 ms (PAS10)" plasticity.

Motorcortical excitability and synaptic plasticity is enhanced in professional musicians.

Musicians not only have extraordinary motor and sensory skills, but they also have an increased ability to learn new tasks compared with non-musicians. We examined how these features are expressed in neurophysiological parameters of excitability and plasticity in the motor system by comparing the results of 11 professional musicians and 8 age-matched non-musicians. Parameters of motor excitability were assessed using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to measure motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) together with recruitment of corticospinal projections [input-output curve (IOcurve)] and of short-latency intracortical inhibition (SICIcurve).

Differences between the effects of three plasticity inducing protocols on the organization of the human motor cortex.

Several experimental protocols induce lasting changes in the excitability of motor cortex. Some involve direct cortical stimulation, others activate the somatosensory system and some combine motor and sensory stimulation. The effects usually are measured as changes in amplitude of the motor-evoked-potential (MEP) or short-interval intracortical inhibition (SICI) elicited by a single or paired pulses of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).

Transcallosal sensorimotor integration: effects of sensory input on cortical projections to the contralateral hand.

Objective: Low amplitude vibration of forearm or hand muscles predominantly activates proprioceptive inputs that influence corticospinal projections in a focal manner, increasing output to the stimulated muscle while reducing output to neighbouring muscles. Modulation of contralateral forearm muscles by vibration has also been reported on one occasion. The aim of the current investigation was to investigate the effects of proprioceptive input from a hand muscle on corticospinal excitability, intracortical inhibition (SICI) and interhemispheric inhibition (IHI) targeting the homologous contralateral muscle.

Spatial attention affects sensorimotor reorganisation in human motor cortex.

It is well known that the somatotopic representation of sensory and motor cortices reorganises in response to sustained changes in sensory input. It is also clear that the extent of the effect depends on whether or not subjects pay attention during the procedure. Here we show that the pattern of reorganisation produced by sustained sensory input depends not only on the subjects' attention but also on the spatial focus of their attention on the body surface.

Pathophysiological differences between musician's dystonia and writer's cramp.

Focal hand dystonia (FHD) has been suggested to be a maladaptive response of the brain to repetitive performance of stereotyped and attentionally demanding hand movements. However, not all patients with FHD have a strict history of excessive hand use; for example, patients with musician's dystonia (MD) spend many hours per day with their attention focused on instrumental practice, whereas many patients with writer's cramp (WC) have a history of average hand use. The present experiments test whether seven MD and six WC patients have different pathophysiological deficits by examining the spatial pattern of sensorimotor organization in the motor cortex.

The effect of sensory input and attention on the sensorimotor organization of the hand area of the human motor cortex.

Sensory input can remodel representations in the sensory cortex, and this effect is heavily influenced by attention to the stimulus. Here we ask whether pure sensory input can also influence the spatial distribution of sensory effects on motor cortical hand area (sensorimotor organization) and whether this is modulated by attention. Sensorimotor organization was tested by applying short (1.

The right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is essential in time reproduction: an investigation with repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation.

This study used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to investigate the roles of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and supplementary motor area (SMA) in short (500 ms) and long (2 s) interval timing. The results were compared with rTMS over the leg area of motor cortex, an area not thought to be involved with time estimation. rTMS was delivered during one of two phases of a time reproduction task: at the onset of the Estimation Phase (presentation of the interval to be timed) and at the onset of the Reproduction Phase (subjects' reproduction of the timed interval).

Memory for fingertip forces: passive hand muscle vibration interferes with predictive grip force scaling.

When subjects repetitively lift an object, the grip force they select is influenced by the mechanical object properties of the preceding lift. Similar effects on grip force scaling are observed whether the subsequent lift is performed with the same hand or the hand contralateral to the preceding lift. Here we demonstrate that passive vibration of the hand muscles involved in the generation of grip force in the interval between two blocks of lifting trials interferes with predictive grip force scaling.

Differential effect of muscle vibration on intracortical inhibitory circuits in humans.

Low amplitude muscle vibration (0.5 ms; 80 Hz; duration 1.5 s) was applied in turn to each of three different intrinsic hand muscles (first dorsal interosseus, FDI; abductor pollicis brevis, APB; and abductor digiti minimi, ADM) in order to test its effect on the EMG responses evoked by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).

Focal reduction of intracortical inhibition in the motor cortex by selective proprioceptive stimulation.

The influence of proprioception on motorcortical excitability was assessed by muscle vibration (MV; 80 Hz, 0.5 mm amplitude) of the flexor carpi radialis muscle (FCR) and compared to voluntary contraction and relaxation conditions. Motor thresholds, motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) in response to single pulses of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and the intracortical inhibition (ICI) and facilitation (ICF) after paired magnetic stimuli were studied.