Background: Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a non-invasive method for stimulating the human cortex. Classical conditioning is a phenomenon of developed associations between stimuli. Our primary objective was to determine whether TMS effects could be conditioned. Prepulse inhibition represents another relationship between two stimuli, and a secondary assessment was performed to explore this relationship.

Methods: An auditory-visual conditioning stimulus (CS) was paired with the TMS unconditioned stimulus (US) over motor cortex producing a motor-evoked potential (MEP) unconditioned response (UR). Two versions of the CS-US pairing paradigms were tested, one with a short intertrial interval (ITI) and another with a long ITI. The short ITI paradigm had more CS-US pairings and shorter session duration than the long ITI paradigm. Tests for conditioned responses (CRs) were performed following CS-US pairing (CS+/US+), by presenting the CS alone (CS+/US-). Reverse testing was also performed after CS-US pairing (CS+/US+) in separate sessions, by presenting the US alone (CS-/US+).

Results: Evidence for CRs was found only with the short ITI paradigm. The magnitudes of CRs were smaller than TMS-induced MEPs, and the CRs were found only in a percentage of tests. Prepulse inhibition was robustly evident for the long ITI paradigm, but not for the short ITI paradigm.

Conclusions: We have found evidence that classical conditioning principles can be applied to brain stimulation in humans. These findings provide a method for exploring brain and behavioral relationships in humans, as well as suggesting approaches to enhance therapeutic uses of TMS or other forms of brain stimulation.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.brs.2009.08.003DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

iti paradigm
16
prepulse inhibition
12
cs-us pairing
12
long iti
12
short iti
12
transcranial magnetic
8
magnetic stimulation
8
classical conditioning
8
performed cs-us
8
pairing cs+/us+
8

Similar Publications

A thorough understanding of surgical anatomy is essential for preparing and training medical students to become competent and skilled surgeons. While Virtual Reality (VR) has shown to be a suitable interaction paradigm for surgical training, traditional anatomical VR models often rely on simple labels and arrows pointing to relevant landmarks. Yet, studies have indicated that such visual settings could benefit from knowledge maps as such representations explicitly illustrate the conceptual connections between anatomical landmarks.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Nature redux: interrogating biomorphism and soft robot aesthetics through generative AI.

Front Robot AI

October 2024

SDU Soft Robotics, SDU Biorobotics, Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Institute, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has rapidly become a widespread design aid through the recent proliferation of generative AI tools. In this work we use generative AI to explore soft robotics designs, specifically Soft Biomorphism, an aesthetic design paradigm emphasizing the inherent biomorphic qualities of soft robots to leverage them as affordances for interactions with humans. The work comprises two experiments aimed at uncovering how generative AI can articulate and expand the design space of soft biomorphic robotics using text-to-image (TTI) and image-to-image (ITI) generation techniques.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Learned Symptom-Specific Fear Toward a Visceral Sensation and Its Impact on Perceptual Habituation.

Psychosom Med

November 2024

From the Research Group Health Psychology (Pattyn, van de Pavert, Jelinčić, von Leupoldt, Van Diest), Laboratory for Brain-Gut Axis Studies, Translational Research Center for Gastrointestinal Disorders, Department of Chronic Diseases and Metabolism, Faculty of Medicine (Pattyn, van de Pavert, Van Oudenhove), KU Leuven, Leuven; REVAL Rehabilitation Research, Faculty of Rehabilitation Sciences (Zaman), University of Hasselt, Hasselt; and Center for the Psychology of Learning and Experimental Psychopathology (Zaman), Leuven Brain Institute (Jelinčić, von Leupoldt, Van Oudenhove, Van Diest), KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.

Objective: Impaired habituation of bodily sensations has been suggested as a contributing factor to chronic pain. We examined in healthy volunteers the influence of fear learning toward a nonpainful sensation in the esophagus on the perceptual habituation of this sensation.

Methods: In a homoreflexive fear learning paradigm, nonpainful electrical sensations in the esophagus were used as a conditioned stimulus (CS).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Aim Of The Study: Sensory gating is a human higher cognitive function that serves to suppress excessive sensory information and prevent brain overactivity. To elucidate this function, a paired-pulse stimulation paradigm has been used while recording electroencephalography (EEG), and evaluated as an amplitude ratio of responses to a second stimulus (S2) over responses to the first stimulus (S1). The present study investigated the effects of the inter-stimulus interval (ISI) and inter-trial interval (ITI) on somatosensory gating using somatosensory-evoked potentials (SEPs).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A threat from within: Learning to fear by observing aversive bodily symptoms in others.

Behav Res Ther

July 2024

Department of Clinical Psychology, Experimental Psychopathology and Psychotherapy, Institute of Psychology, Philipps University Marburg, Marburg, Germany.

Although observational fear learning has been implicated in the development of phobic-related fears, studies investigating observational learning of fear of bodily symptoms remain scarce. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate whether fear in response to bodily symptoms can be acquired simply by observing a fearful reaction to provocation of aversive bodily symptoms in others. Forty healthy participants underwent an observational fear conditioning paradigm consisting of two phases.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!