Measurement of transcallosal inhibition in traumatic brain injury by transcranial magnetic stimulation.
OBJECTIVE
To study whether transcallosal inhibition (TCI) can evaluate the severity of traumatic brain injury (TBI).


METHODS
Case-control study.


METHODS
Twenty patients with a chronic TBI and 20 control subjects were studied. The following transcranial magnetic stimulation parameters were checked; resting motor threshold, central motor latency times, onset latency of TCI, duration of TCI, transcallosal conduction times and amount of TCI. The severity of TBI was evaluated using the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS).


RESULTS
The amount of TCI was significantly lower in the patients than the control subjects (p < 0.001). The amount of TCI was highly correlated with the GCS (r = 0.787, p < 0.001).


CONCLUSIONS
An assessment of TCI was found to be a more sensitive and useful method for an evaluation of the severity of TBI.
Takeuchi
Naoyuki
N
Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan. naoyuki@med.hokudai.ac.jp
Ikoma
Katsunori
K
Chuma
Takayo
T
Matsuo
Yuichiro
Y
D000328:Adult; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000503:physiopathology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002908:Chronic Disease; D003337:Corpus Callosum / Q000502:physiology*; D004576:Electromyography; D019054:Evoked Potentials, Motor / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D050781:Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation