20 Paired associative stimulation (PAS) of the motor cortex leads to increased motor evoked potential 21 (MEP) amplitudes in the stimulated hand muscles. We hypothesized that evoking GABA A receptor-22 mediated short-interval intracortical inhibition (SICI) simultaneously with excitatory PAS would depress 23 long-term potentiation plasticity in motor cortex. Four different PAS paradigms were te...

There is increasing interest in electroencephalogram (EEG)-based brain-computer interface (BCI) as a tool for rehabilitation of upper limb motor functions in hemiplegic stroke patients. This type of BCI often exploits mu and beta oscillations in EEG recorded over the sensorimotor areas, and their event-related desynchronization (ERD) following motor imagery is believed to represent increased se...

Motor learning requires practice over a period of time and depends on brain plasticity, yet even for relatively simple movements, there are multiple practice strategies that can be used for skill acquisition. We investigated the role of intracortical inhibition in the primary motor cortex (M1) during motor skill learning. Event-related transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was used to assess ...

Retention of motor learning can be enhanced or degraded by subsequent performance of a different task. Neurophysiologically this may reflect interference in synaptic plasticity by ongoing neural activity in the brain. Here we demonstrate that N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) dependent aftereffects of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) also are subject to interference effects, sugges...

The human motor cortex has a tendency to resonant activity at about 20 Hz so stimulation should more readily entrain neuronal populations at this frequency. We investigated whether and how different interneuronal circuits contribute to such resonance by using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) during transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) at motor (20 Hz) and a nonmotor resona...

There is evidence that surround inhibition (SI), a neural mechanism to enhance contrast between signals, may play a role in primary motor cortex during movement initiation, while it is deficient in patients with focal hand dystonia (FHD). To further characterize SI with respect to different force levels, single- and paired-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation was applied at rest and during i...

INTRODUCTION This study aimed to clarify cortical circuit mechanisms contributing to corticomotor excitability during postexercise depression (PED) following repetitive nonfatiguing movement. We investigated changes in short-latency afferent inhibition (SAI) and short-interval intracortical inhibition (SICI) by paired-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) during PED. METHODS A total o...

Objective To investigate the effect of cathodal transcranial direct-current stimulation (c-tDCS) on seizure frequency in patients with drug-resistant temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). Method Twenty-nine patients with drug-resistant TLE participated in this study. They were randomized to experimental or sham group. Twenty participants (experimental group) received within-session repeated c-tDCS in...