RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 The spectral features of EEG responses to transcranial magnetic stimulation of the primary motor cortex depend on the amplitude of the motor evoked potentials
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 133769
DO 10.1101/133769
A1 Matteo Fecchio
A1 Andrea Pigorini
A1 Angela Comanducci
A1 Simone Sarasso
A1 Silvia Casarotto
A1 Isabella Premoli
A1 Chiara-Camilla Derchi
A1 Alice Mazza
A1 Simone Russo
A1 Federico Resta
A1 Fabio Ferrarelli
A1 Maurizio Mariotti
A1 Ulf Ziemann
A1 Marcello Massimini
A1 Mario Rosanova
YR 2017
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/05/03/133769.abstract
AB Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) of the primary motor cortex (M1) can excite both cortico-cortical and cortico-spinal axons resulting in TMS-evoked potentials (TEPs) and motor-evoked potentials (MEPs), respectively. Despite this remarkable difference with other cortical areas, the influence of motor output and its amplitude on TEPs is largely unknown. Here we studied TEPs resulting from M1 stimulation and assessed whether their waveform and spectral features depend on the MEP amplitude. To this aim, we performed two separate experiments. In experiment 1, single-pulse TMS was applied at the same supra-threshold intensity on primary motor, prefrontal, premotor and parietal cortices and the corresponding TEPs were compared by means of local mean field power and time-frequency spectral analysis. In experiment 2 we stimulated M1 at resting motor threshold in order to elicit MEPs characterized by a wide range of amplitudes. TEPs computed from high-MEP and low-MEP trials were then compared using the same methods applied in experiment 1. In line with previous studies, TMS of M1 produced larger TEPs compared to other cortical stimulations. Notably, we found that only TEPs produced by M1 stimulation were accompanied by a late (∼300 ms after TMS) event-related desynchronization (ERD), whose magnitude was strongly dependent on the amplitude of MEPs. Overall, these results suggest that M1 produces peculiar responses to TMS possibly reflecting specific anatomo-functional properties, such as the re-entry of proprioceptive feedback associated with target muscle activation.