In search of augmentation at human SI: Somatosensory cortical responses to stimulus trains and their modulation by motor activity.

In many animal preparations, repeated stimulation at ca. 10 Hz in thalamic nuclei leads to rapid changes in the cortical evoked responses, known as the augmenting response. The present study was undertaken to evaluate whether anything similar to the augmenting response can be observed in awake human subjects when a peripheral nerve is stimulated, and whether a possible human correlate of augmenting would be modified when the subject is engaged in an active motor task. Somatosensory-evoked magnetic fields (SEFs) were recorded in healthy human subjects in response to stimulus trains (15 pulses at 10 Hz) applied to the left median nerve. SEFs were recorded in a resting condition and during a finger-tapping task performed with the stimulated hand. In the resting condition, the most marked change in the SEF configuration was a reduction of the P35m deflection and a concurrent enhancement of the N45m deflection during the 1st few stimuli of the trains. Another conspicuous feature was a prolongation of the latencies of the N45m and P60m deflections toward the end of the train. In the motor task, the response modulation during the pulse trains was in general similar to the resting condition. The most notable difference was that the P35m amplitude was markedly reduced already for the 1st pulse of the train when compared with rest. Also, the latencies of N45m and P60m were not prolonged during the train. We discuss the possibility that the reduction of P35m and a concurrent increase of N45m during a pulse train constitute a human analogue to the augmenting response, and suggest that these changes may reflect a decrease of inhibitory postsynaptic potentials (IPSPs, P35m) and an increase of secondary excitatory postsynaptic potentials (N45m) during stimulus train presentation. The reduction of P35m during motor activity compared with rest already at the beginning of stimulus trains suggests that postsynaptic IPSPs in response to afferent stimulation are reduced during active movement. Otherwise the short-term plastic changes were similar during rest and motor activity. Finally, the results suggest slowing down of intracortical network processing with repeated stimulation, and that this slowing is not present during an active motor task which depends on afferent feedback information.