Variability of motor evoked potentials in stroke explained by corticospinal pathway integrity
Motor evoked potentials (MEPs) acquired using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) are routinely used to index excitability of residual corticospinal tracts (CST) devoted to the paretic upper-limb in stroke. Unfortunately, MEPs suffer from considerable trial-to-trial variability [1]. Variability is attributed to several physiologic and methodological factors, such as TMS intensity or state of muscle activation [1]; but variability can also arise from the degree of damage to CST. No study to date has linked variability of MEPs to CST damage in stroke.
Source: BRAIN STIMULATION: Basic, Translational, and Clinical Research in Neuromodulation - Category: Neurology Authors: Kelsey A. Potter-Baker, Yin-Liang Lin, Andre G. Machado, Adriana B. Conforto, David A. Cunningham, Vishwanath Sankarasubramanian, Ken Sakaie, Ela B. Plow Source Type: research