General Methods and Intro to TMS - TMS

16 important questions on General Methods and Intro to TMS - TMS

When is TMS casual?

Only when it inhibits something

What pulse does the injection of “neural noise” approach use?

Single-pulse TMS

Explain the injection of “neural noise” approach experiment 1

Researchers showed people three letters as stimulus on the screen, and they stimulated the primary visual cortex with TMS as varied timings.
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Findings of the injection of "neural noise" approach experiment 1

At 100ms, people could not report any letters.

  • Because that’s the time the information arrives at the primary visual cortex. So, when you stimulate it, people have trouble reporting the letters because the neurons are busy firing. 

Findings of the injection of "neural noise" approach experiment 2

If you move the stimulation side to the left, the only letter that people can really recognise really well is the left letter. The right letter really suffers. Vice-versa

Showed that everything that's presented on the left hemifield will end up on the right side of the primary visual cortex and everything that's presented on the right hemifield will turn up on the left

Explain the injection of “neural noise” approach experiment 3

Researchers moved the TMS stimulation from top to bottom at midline after 100ms - They couldn’t stimulate below the center (there’s a bone)

Findings of the injection of "neural noise" approach experiment 3

If you stimulate pretty much in the centre, you inhibit everything. But if you go high enough, the letter that's that's shown on the top is reported pretty well.

Everything at the top of your visual field will end up at the bottom of the visual cortex, and the bottom of your visual field will end up in the upper region of the primary visual cortex.

What is Repetitive TMS (rTMS)

For prolonging the effect of TMS
  • If you want to know if a brain region is involved in a more complex task, eg. calculating, or making a decision, that usually it takes a bit longer — you can’t use TMS
  • TMS is a technique where you have one single pulse that really disrupts processing for a brief moment in time
  • Use a weaker stimulation, but you do it for a longer period of time

For rTMS, do you do it when people perform the task?

No, you do it beforehand.

Idea: you get a lot of neurons to fire at random for a long time. So it will take quite a long time for that brain region to actually recover and go back to baseline (normal functioning).

How many pulses does “probing excitability” approach use?

Single-pulse TMS

In the “probing excitability” approach, how do you test the  excitability of the primary motor cortex?

By recording “motor evoked potentials” (MEPs) using the electromyogram (EMG) – the electrical activity of muscles

Is the probing excitability TMS approach casual?

No, because it is not inhibiting anything

Explain Bode et al. study (i.e., what did they look at?)

Looked at whether different stimuli automatically trigger different strategies - internal and external

Findings of Bode et al. Study

No difference in the excitability of the primary motor cortex - it's probably more of a general involvement.

What pulse does the “probing information transfer” approach use?

Paired-pulse TMS

What is the “probing information transfer” approach?

Uses two pulses in brief succession

First pulse: sub-threshold
Second pulse: supra-threshold

The question is how strongly the first pulse influences the effect of the second

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