title: Associative cortico-cortical plasticity may affect ipsilateral finger opposition movements.
abstract: We have recently demonstrated that cortico-cortical paired associative stimulation (cc-PAS) can modulate interhemispheric inhibition (IHI) in the human brain. Here we further explored the after effects of cc-PAS on fine hand movements. Ten healthy right-handed volunteers received 90 paired transcranial stimuli to the right and left primary motor hand area (M1(HAND)) at an interstimulus interval (ISI) of 8 ms. We studied the after effects of cc-PAS on the performance of repetitive finger opposition movements of different complexity on both hands using a sensor-engineered glove. A quantitative evaluation of the following parameters was performed: Touch Duration (TD), Inter Tapping Interval (ITI) and Number of Errors (NE). We confirmed previous data by showing that left-to-right and right-to-left cc-PAS attenuated IHI. The new finding is that both left-to-right and right-to-left cc-PAS were able to influence the performance of a simple finger opposition movement changing the duration of TD and ITI. Interestingly the effect on the two hands was opposite in direction. These results provide further insight that cc-PAS can induce associative plasticity in connections between the targeted cortical areas influencing motor hand performances. These results may be relevant for future rehabilitative applications.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosciences, Psychiatry and Anaesthesiology, University of Messina, Italy.
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Rizzo
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bove
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Naro
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tacchino
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Mastroeni
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Avanzino
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Crupi
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Morgante
authors.forename: H R
authors.initials: HR
authors.lastname: Siebner
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Quartarone
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D004576:Electromyography; D019054:Evoked Potentials, Motor / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D005385:Fingers / Q000502:physiology*; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D009473:Neuronal Plasticity / Q000502:physiology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D050781:Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation