Article

Non-invasive brain stimulation methods such as transcranial
magnetic stimulation (TMS) are starting to be widely used to make causality-based
inferences about brain-behavior interactions. Moreover,
TMS-based clinical
applications are under development to treat specific neurological or psychiatric
conditions, such as depression, dystonia, pain, tinnitus and the sequels of
stroke, among others. TMS works by inducing non-invasively electric
currents in localized cortical regions thus modulating their activity levels
according to settings, such as frequency, number of pulses, train and regime
duration and intertrain intervals. For instance, it is known for the motor cortex
that low frequency or continuous patterns of TMS pulses tend to depress local
activity whereas high frequency and discontinuous TMS patterns tend to enhance
it. Additionally, local cortical effects of TMS can result in dramatic patterns
in distant brain regions. These distant effects are mediated via anatomical
connectivity in a magnitude that depends on the efficiency and sign of such
connections. PERSPECTIVES: An efficient use of TMS in both fields requires
however, a deep understanding of its operational principles, its risks, its
potential and limitations. In this article, we will briefly present the
principles through which non-invasive brain stimulation methods, and in
particular TMS, operate. CONCLUSION: Readers will be provided with fundamental
information needed to critically discuss TMS studies and design hypothesis-driven
TMS applications for cognitive and clinical neuroscience research.
CI - Copyright (c) 2011 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Langue : FRANCAIS