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The Journal of Neuroscience, February 15, 2006, 26(7):1945-1952; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4097-05.2006

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Development/Plasticity/Repair
Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation-Induced Changes in Sensorimotor Coupling Parallel Improvements of Somatosensation in Humans

Burkhard Pleger,¹ Felix Blankenburg,¹ Sven Bestmann,¹ Christian C. Ruff,^1,2 Katja Wiech,^1,3 Klaas E. Stephan,¹ Karl J. Friston,¹ and Raymond J. Dolan¹

¹Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience and ²Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Institute of Neurology, London WC1N 3BG, United Kingdom, and ³Department of Human Anatomy and Genetics, Oxford University, Oxford OX1 3QX, United Kingdom

Correspondence should be addressed to Burkhard Pleger, Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience, Institute of Neurology, 12 Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG, UK. Email: b.pleger{at}fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is an established technique for non-invasive stimulation of human cortex. Although studies have shown an influence of rTMS on single cortical regions and on simple behavioral response patterns, its influences on the dynamics of task-related activity in cortical networks have not been characterized. We provide such a characterization by showing that 5 Hz rTMS over primary somatosensory cortex (SI) induces a reconfiguration of activity patterns in a sensorimotor network, comprising the stimulated region and ipsilateral primary motor cortex (MI). These plastic changes endure for up to 120 min and are correlated with behavioral improvement in discrimination. Dynamic causal modeling showed that this reconfiguration could be explained by an rTMS-induced increase in SI excitability (self-connection) and an increase in the effective connectivity from SI to MI. Thus, our data demonstrate that rTMS can temporarily induce behaviorally relevant reorganization within a complex cortical network underlying human somatosensory experience.

Key words: functional magnetic resonance imaging; repetitive transcranial stimulation; sensorimotor coupling; effective connectivity; plasticity; perception

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Received Sept. 27, 2005; revised Jan. 3, 2006; accepted Jan. 5, 2006.

Correspondence should be addressed to Burkhard Pleger, Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience, Institute of Neurology, 12 Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG, UK. Email: b.pleger{at}fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk

This article has been cited by other articles:

				B. Pleger, F. Blankenburg, C. C. Ruff, J. Driver, and R. J. Dolan Reward Facilitates Tactile Judgments and Modulates Hemodynamic Responses in Human Primary Somatosensory Cortex J. Neurosci., August 13, 2008; 28(33): 8161 - 8168. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				A. T. Sack, A. Kohler, S. Bestmann, D. E. J. Linden, P. Dechent, R. Goebel, and J. Baudewig Imaging the Brain Activity Changes Underlying Impaired Visuospatial Judgments: Simultaneous fMRI, TMS, and Behavioral Studies Cereb Cortex, December 1, 2007; 17(12): 2841 - 2852. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				B. Pleger, C. C. Ruff, F. Blankenburg, S. Bestmann, K. Wiech, K. E. Stephan, A. Capilla, K. J. Friston, and R. J. Dolan Neural Coding of Tactile Decisions in the Human Prefrontal Cortex J. Neurosci., November 29, 2006; 26(48): 12596 - 12601. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				E. Rounis, K. E. Stephan, L. Lee, H. R. Siebner, A. Pesenti, K. J. Friston, J. C. Rothwell, and R. S. J. Frackowiak Acute changes in frontoparietal activity after repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in a cued reaction time task. J. Neurosci., September 20, 2006; 26(38): 9629 - 9638. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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