• Lynn M Rogers, David A Brown, and James W Stinear.
• Department of Biomedical Engineering, Northwestern University, McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, Evanston, IL, USA. lynnrogers2008@u.northwestern.edu
• Clin Neurophysiol. 2011 Jun 1; 122 (6): 1211-8.

ObjectivePaired associative stimulation (PAS) modulates bilateral distal lower limb motor pathways during walking. We assessed the effects of inhibitory PAS applied to the vastus medialis (VM) motor pathways of chronic stroke patients.MethodsPAS consisted of 120 electrical stimuli applied to the femoral nerve paired with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) of the lower limb primary motor cortex so that the estimated arrival of the afferent volley occurred 8 ms after delivery of the magnetic stimulus. Stimulus pairs were delivered to the non-paretic VM motor system of 11 chronic stroke patients and the right limb motor system of 11 non-impaired subjects at 0.19 Hz. The effects of PAS on VM motor pathway excitability and muscle activity were assessed during pedaling. TMS-induced motor evoked potential (MEP) amplitudes and the percent of VM activity in the flexion phase of active pedaling (% FLEXVM) was examined before and after PAS.ResultsInhibitory PAS reduced VM MEP amplitudes in the target limb (p<0.05) of both groups, while post-PAS paretic VM MEP amplitudes increased for some patients and decreased for others. Group mean paretic limb % FLEXVM was not altered by inhibitory PAS.ConclusionsThese results indicate PAS can be used to manipulate motor cortical excitability in proximal lower limb representations, however the sign of induced modulation was unpredictable and cyclic muscle activity was not modified.SignificanceThe study has important implications for the development of therapies involving non-invasive brain stimulation to modify abnormal motor behavior following stroke.Copyright © 2010 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

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