Department of Neurosciences, Psychiatry and Anaesthesiology, University of Messina, Italy.
Behav Brain Res. 2011 Jan 1;216(1):433-9. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2010.08.037. Epub 2010 Sep 9.
We have recently demonstrated that cortico-cortical paired associative stimulation (cc-PAS) can modulate interhemispheric inhibition (IHI) in the human brain. Here we further explored the after effects of cc-PAS on fine hand movements. Ten healthy right-handed volunteers received 90 paired transcranial stimuli to the right and left primary motor hand area (M1(HAND)) at an interstimulus interval (ISI) of 8 ms. We studied the after effects of cc-PAS on the performance of repetitive finger opposition movements of different complexity on both hands using a sensor-engineered glove. A quantitative evaluation of the following parameters was performed: Touch Duration (TD), Inter Tapping Interval (ITI) and Number of Errors (NE). We confirmed previous data by showing that left-to-right and right-to-left cc-PAS attenuated IHI. The new finding is that both left-to-right and right-to-left cc-PAS were able to influence the performance of a simple finger opposition movement changing the duration of TD and ITI. Interestingly the effect on the two hands was opposite in direction. These results provide further insight that cc-PAS can induce associative plasticity in connections between the targeted cortical areas influencing motor hand performances. These results may be relevant for future rehabilitative applications.
我们最近证明，皮质-皮质成对联合刺激（cc-PAS）可以调节人类大脑中的半球间抑制（IHI）。在这里，我们进一步探讨了 cc-PAS 对手部精细运动的后续影响。10 名健康的右利手志愿者以 8 毫秒的间隔接受 90 对双侧初级运动手区（M1（HAND））的经颅刺激。我们使用传感器工程手套研究了 cc-PAS 对双手不同复杂程度的重复性手指对指运动的表现的后续影响。对以下参数进行了定量评估：触摸持续时间（TD）、敲击间隔时间（ITI）和错误次数（NE）。我们通过显示左到右和右到左的 cc-PAS 减弱了 IHI，证实了之前的数据。新的发现是，左到右和右到左的 cc-PAS 都能够通过改变 TD 和 ITI 的持续时间来影响简单手指对指运动的表现。有趣的是，对双手的影响方向相反。这些结果进一步表明，cc-PAS 可以在目标皮质区域之间的连接中诱导联想性可塑性，从而影响手部运动表现。这些结果可能与未来的康复应用有关。
