Transcranial oscillatory current stimulation has recently emerged as a noninvasive technique that can interact with ongoing endogenous rhythms of the human brain. Yet, there is still little knowledge on how time-varied exogenous currents acutely modulate cortical excitability. In ten healthy individuals we used on-line single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to search for systemati...

26 Transcranial oscillatory current stimulation has recently emerged as a non-invasive 27 technique that can interact with ongoing endogenous rhythms of the human brain. 28 Yet, there is still little knowledge on how time-varied exogenous currents acutely 29 modulate cortical excitability. In ten healthy individuals we used online single-pulse 30 transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to searc...

Changes in the strength of corticospinal projections to muscles in the upper and lower limbs are induced in conscious humans after paired associative stimulation (PAS) to the motor cortex. We tested whether an intervention of PAS consisting of 90 low-frequency (0.1-Hz) stimuli to the common peroneal nerve combined with suprathreshold transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) produces specific cha...

Interventions that can produce targeted brain plasticity after human spinal cord injury (SCI) are needed for restoration of impaired movement in these patients. In this study, we tested the effects of repetitive cervicothoracic transspinal stimulation in one person with cervical motor incomplete SCI on cortical and corticospinal excitability, which were assessed via transcranial magnetic stimul...

Motor cortical modulation of cutaneous reflex responses in the hindlimb of the intact cat. Summary We have used the technique of spatial facilitation to examine the interactions between the signals conveyed by the corticospinal tract and those of cutaneous afferents in the hindlimb of the intact, walking cat. Microstimulation was applied to 20 cortical sites in the hindlimb representation of th...

Although facilitation of the corticospinal system during action observation is widely accepted, it remains controversial whether this facilitation reflects a replica of the observed movements or the goal of the observed motor acts. In the present study, we asked whether, when an object is grasped by using a tool, corticospinal facilitation represents 1) the movements of the hand, 2) the movemen...

We have used the technique of spatial facilitation to examine the interactions between the signals conveyed by the corticospinal tract and those of cutaneous afferents in the hindlimb of the intact, walking cat. Microstimulation was applied to 20 cortical sites in the hindlimb representation of the motor cortex and to three different cutaneous nerves innervating the hindpaw in four cats. Condit...

Peripheral sensory afferents in the hand activate both excitatory and inhibitory intracortical circuits to potentially facilitate and prune descending motor commands. In this study, we characterized how afferent inputs modulate the excitability of cortical circuits in the leg area of the primary motor cortex by examining how stimulation of the tibial nerve (TN) at the ankle alters motor evoked ...

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of presumably direct corticospinal pathways in long-term training of the lower limb in humans. It was hypothesized that corticospinal projections are affected in a training-specific manner. To assess specificity, balance training was compared to training of explosive strength of the shank muscles and to a nontraining group. Both trainings compri...

In uninjured humans, it is well established that voluntary contraction of muscles on one side of the body can facilitate transmission in the contralateral corticospinal pathway. This crossed facilitatory effect may favor interlimb coordination and motor performance. Whether this aspect of corticospinal function is preserved after chronic spinal cord injury (SCI) is unknown. Here, using transcra...