Reproducibility of the effects of theta burst stimulation on motor cortical plasticity in healthy participants
Open accessAbstract
Objective Theta-burst stimulation (TBS) is a repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) protocol, capable of enhancing or suppressing the amplitude of contralateral motor-evoked potentials (MEP) for several minutes after stimulation over the primary motor cortex. Continuous TBS (cTBS) produces a long-term depression (LTD)-like reduction of cortical excitability. The purpose of this study was to assess the test-retest reproducibility of the effects of cTBS and to investigate which neurophysiologic markers of cTBS-induced plasticity are most reproducible. Methods In ten healthy participants we evaluated in two different sessions the effects of cTBS (using AP-PA current direction, opposite to most commercial rTMS stimulators) on MEPs induced by single-pulse suprathreshold TMS (using AP-PA or PA current direction) over left motor cortex in the first dorsal interosseus (FDI) muscle. Results Results demonstrate that the marker of cTBS induced-plasticity with highest within-subject reproducibility is the modulation of corticospinal excitability measured 5min after cTBS. Conclusion Overall the effects of cTBS modulation show limited test-retest reproducibility and some measures of the cTBS effects are more reproducible than others. Significance Studies comparing cTBS effects in healthy subjects and patients need to proceed with care. Further characterization of the effects of TBS and identification of the best metrics warrant future studies.
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The cTBS paradigm used in this study was recently shown to induce significant suppression of MEPs in healthy controls.
“This paradigm was recently shown to induce significant suppression of MEPs in healthy controls (see Vernet et al., 2014).”
From Theta burst stimulation to characterize changes in brain plasticity following mild traumatic brain injury: A proof-of-principle study (2015) · cites this paper as Vernet et al., 2014
The Results (section 3; page unavailable) say that cTBS suppressed MEPs on average in healthy participants, although some showed the opposite response. The copy does not report that suppression itself was statistically significant; the significance tests in section 3.1 compare visits, not post-cTBS MEPs with baseline. (LLM, conf=0.84)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredContinuous TBS has many advantages over other techniques, including short application time, low intensity of stimulation, and reasonable intra-subject reproducibility over two separate sessions.
“This method has many advantages over other techniques such as its short application time (Huang et al., 2005), low intensity of stimulation (Huang et al., 2005) and reasonable intra-subject reproducibility over two seperate sessions (Vernet et al., 2014).”
From Theta burst stimulation to characterize changes in brain plasticity following mild traumatic brain injury: A proof-of-principle study (2015) · cites this paper as Vernet et al., 2014
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Cites
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Tremblay, S., Vernet, M., Bashir, S., Pascual-Leone, A., & Théoret, H. (2015) · Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience · doi:10.3233/rnn-140459 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
Self-citation
- Authors
- Vernet, M., Bashir, S., Yoo, W.-K., Oberman, L., Mizrahi, I., Ifert-Miller, F., Beck, C. J., & Pascual-Leone, A.
- Affiliations
- Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (US)
- Venue
- Clinical Neurophysiology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2014-02
- Volume
- 125
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 320-326
- ISSN
- 1388-2457 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4169192
- OpenAlex
- W2148482283
- Cited by
- 73
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 4
- FWCI
- 4.49
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Clinical Neurophysiology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- HAL (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Consortia for Improving Medicine with Innovation and Technology
- Fondation Fyssen
- National Institutes of Health
- Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
- National Institute of Mental Health (F32MH080493)
- National Center for Research Resources (UL1RR025758, KL2RR025757)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Neurology › Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Studies
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neuroscience and Neuropharmacology Research
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Neurology › Neurological disorders and treatments
- Keywords
- theta burst stimulation, continuous theta burst stimulation, motor cortical plasticity, test-retest reproducibility, motor evoked potentials, corticospinal excitability, long-term depression, primary motor cortex, first dorsal interosseous muscle, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Aged, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Motor Cortex, Neuronal Plasticity, Retrospective Studies, Reproducibility of Results, Evoked Potentials, Motor, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, Healthy Volunteers
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