Toward the establishment of neurophysiological indicators for neuropsychiatric disorders using transcranial magnetic stimulation‐evoked potentials: A systematic review

Abstract

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) can depolarize the neurons directly under the coil when applied to the cerebral cortex, and modulate the neural circuit associated with the stimulation site, which makes it possible to measure the neurophysiological index to evaluate excitability and inhibitory functions. Concurrent TMS and electroencephalography (TMS-EEG) has been developed to assess the neurophysiological characteristics of cortical regions other than the motor cortical region noninvasively. The aim of this review is to comprehensively discuss TMS-EEG research in the healthy brain focused on excitability, inhibition, and plasticity following neuromodulatory TMS paradigms from a neurophysiological perspective. A search was conducted in PubMed to identify articles that examined humans and that were written in English and published by September 2018. The search terms were as follows: (TMS OR 'transcranial magnetic stimulation') AND (EEG OR electroencephalog*) NOT (rTMS OR 'repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation' OR TBS OR 'theta burst stimulation') AND (healthy). The study presents an overview of TMS-EEG methodology and neurophysiological indices and reviews previous findings from TMS-EEG in healthy individuals. Furthermore, this review discusses the potential application of TMS-EEG neurophysiology in the clinical setting to study healthy and diseased brain conditions in the future. Combined TMS-EEG is a powerful tool to probe and map neural circuits in the human brain noninvasively and represents a promising approach for determining the underlying pathophysiology of neuropsychiatric disorders.

Potential Neurophysiological Mechanisms of 1Hz-TMS to the Right Prefrontal Cortex for Depression: An Exploratory TMS-EEG Study in Healthy Participants

“…Collectively, these findings suggest parts of the therapeutic mechanisms of 1Hz-rTMS to the right DLPFC for depression. Lastly, the present study warrants future research that investigates the neurophysiological effects of various types of TMS treatment, providing unique and informative perspectives on the pathophysiology underlying neuropsychiatric disorders as represented by major depressive disorders and schizophrenia [55].…”

A Novel Targeted and High‐Efficiency Nanosystem for Combinational Therapy for Alzheimer's Disease

“…An electroencephalogram (EEG) is the sum of postsynaptic potentials in the cerebral cortex, which can reflect the overall functional state of the electrophysiological activity of the cranial nervous system with high sensitivity. [ 36–38 ] Degenerative cholinergic neurons and decreased acetylcholine content in the synaptic cleft have been shown to lead to changes in synaptic potential. [ 36,37,39 ] Synaptic potential synchronization disorder presents as an increase of low‐frequency θ waves.…”

TMS-EEG Research to Elucidate the Pathophysiological Neural Bases in Patients with Schizophrenia: A Systematic Review

“…Thus, these methodological differences in the included studies make it difficult to interpret the results. Hence, future research applying more standardized experimental methods with larger sample sizes in a transdiagnostic approach will help improve the quality of TMS-EEG study [ 89 ] and further such sophisticated TMS-EEG research will be important to replicate and confirm the currently available findings of this special modality [ 17 ]. In addition, previous TMS-EEG studies have reported TMS neurophysiological findings in patients with SCZ at various clinical stages, but it remains unclear at which clinical stage of SCZ these abnormal neurophysiological findings occur and how they progress.…”

“…However, on the other hand, recent meta-analysis studies have shown inconsistencies in the findings of these MRS findings [ 15 , 16 ]. One way to address these limitations is the development of a combined transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and electroencephalography (EEG) technique that can non-invasively assess the neurophysiological properties of the human cerebral cortex [ 2 , 3 , 17 ].…”