title: Cerebellar stimulation in ataxia.
abstract: The cerebellum plays an important role in movement execution and motor control by modulation of the primary motor cortex (M1) through cerebello-thalamo-cortical connections. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) allows direct investigations of neural networks by stimulating neural structures in humans noninvasively. The motor evoked potential to single-pulse TMS of M1 is used to measure the motor cortical excitability. A conditioning stimulus over the cerebellum preceding a test stimulus of the contralateral M1 enables us to study the cerebellar regulatory functions on M1. In this brief review, we describe this cerebellar stimulation method and its usefulness as a diagnostic tool in clinical neurophysiology.
authors: Department of Neurology, Fukushima Medical University, School of Medicine, 1 Hikarigaoka, Fukushima, Japan. groiss-js@umin.net
authors: Stefan Jun
authors: SJ
authors: Groiss
authors: Yoshikazu
authors: Y
authors: Ugawa
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002525:Cerebellar Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology; D002526:Cerebellar Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology*; D002531:Cerebellum / Q000502:physiology*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D006801:Humans; D009044:Motor Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000503:physiopathology; D020754:Spinocerebellar Ataxias / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology*; D013494:Supranuclear Palsy, Progressive / Q000503:physiopathology; D050781:Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation