Reliability of motor cortex transcranial magnetic stimulation in four muscle representations

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• 作者：M.P. Malcolm ; W.J. Triggs ; K.E. Light ; O. Shechtman ; G. Khandekar and L.J. Gonzalez Rothi
• 刊名：Clinical Neurophysiology
• 出版年：2006
• 期刊代码：61_13882457
• 类别：med
• 出版时间：May 2006
• 卷：117
• 期：5
• 页码：1037-1046
• 文件大小：252 K

摘要

Objective

Motor cortex plasticity may underlie motor recovery after stroke. Numerous studies have used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to investigate motor system plasticity. However, research on the reliability of TMS measures of motor cortex organization and excitability is limited. We sought to test the reliability of these TMS measurements.

Methods

Twenty healthy volunteers were tested twice over a two-week period using TMS to determine motor threshold, map topography, and stimulus–response curves for first dorsal interosseous (FDI), abductor pollicis brevis (APB), extensor digitorum communis (EDC), and flexor carpi radialis (FCR) muscles.

Results

We found moderate to good test–retest reliability TMS measurements of motor threshold (ICC=0.90–0.97), map area (ICC=0.63–0.86) and location (ICC=0.69–0.86), and stimulus–response curves (ICC=0.60–0.83).

Conclusions

TMS assessments of motor representation size, location, and excitability are generally reliable measures, although their reliability may vary according to the muscle under investigation.

Significance

These results suggest that TMS measurements of motor cortex function are reliable enough to be potentially useful in investigation of motor system plasticity.