• Yoshihiro Noda, Mayuko Takano, Masataka Wada, Yu Mimura, and Shinichiro Nakajima.
• Department of Neuropsychiatry, Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan. Electronic address: yoshi-tms@keio.jp.
• Neuroscience. 2024 Aug 30; 554: 637163-71.

BackgroundTranscranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) combined with electroencephalography (EEG), TMS-EEG, is a useful neuroscientific tool for the assessment of neurophysiology in the human cerebral cortex. Theoretically, TMS-EEG data is expected to have a better data quality as the number of stimulation pulses increases. However, since TMS-EEG testing is a modality that is examined on human subjects, the burden on the subject and tolerability of the test must also be carefully considered.MethodIn this study, we aimed to determine the number of stimulation pulses that satisfy the reliability and validity of data quality in single-pulse TMS (spTMS) for the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). TMS-EEG data for (1) 40-pulse, (2) 80-pulse, (3) 160-pulse, and (4) 240-pulse conditions were extracted from spTMS experimental data for the left DLPFC of 20 healthy subjects, and the similarities between TMS-evoked potentials (TEP) and oscillations across the conditions were evaluated.ResultsAs a result, (2) 80-pulse and (3) 160-pulse conditions showed highly equivalent to the benchmark condition of (4) 240-pulse condition. However, (1) 40-pulse condition showed only weak to moderate equivalence to the (4) 240-pulse condition. Thus, in the DLPFC TMS-EEG experiment, 80 pulses of stimulations was found to be a reasonable enough number of pulses to extract reliable TEPs, compared to 160 or 240 pulses.ConclusionsThis is the first substantial study to examine the appropriate number of stimulus pulses that are reasonable and feasible for TMS-EEG testing of the DLPFC.Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

22 keywords...

hide…