Abstract
Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is thought to facilitate brain plasticity. However, few studies address anatomical changes following rTMS in relation to behaviour. We delivered 5 weeks of daily pulsed rTMS stimulation to adult ephrin-A2-/- and wildtype (C57BI/6j) mice (n=10 per genotype) undergoing a visual learning task and analysed learning performance, as well as spine density, in the dentate gyrus molecular and CA1 pyramidal cell layers in Golgi-stained brain sections. We found that neither learning behaviour, nor hippocampal spine density was affected by long term rTMS. Our negative results highlight the lack of deleterious side effects in normal subjects and are consistent with previous studies suggesting that rTMS has a bigger effect on abnormal or injured brain substrates than on normal/control structures.
Highlights
Repetitive transcranial stimulation generates electrical currents in the brain by electromagnetic induction and has been shown to induce synaptic plasticity in human and animal models[1]
RTMS induces long term potentiation (LTP) in rodent hippocampus in vitro[2] and several sessions of high-frequency Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) increases the capacity to induce LTP compared to untreated controls, suggesting it may regulate metaplasticity[3,4]
Because rTMS acts on the same plasticity mechanisms as learning and memory, it has been hypothesised that rTMS may serve as a “priming” mechanism to facilitate long-term synaptic and structural modifications[5,6]
Summary
Repetitive transcranial stimulation (rTMS) generates electrical currents in the brain by electromagnetic induction and has been shown to induce synaptic plasticity in human and animal models[1]. Because rTMS acts on the same plasticity mechanisms as learning and memory, it has been hypothesised that rTMS may serve as a “priming” mechanism to facilitate long-term synaptic and structural modifications[5,6]. The implication is that repeated rTMS stimulation sets up a “plastic” brain state that is conducive to long term functional and structural changes[5]. For this reason, rTMS is being explored in combination with behavioural training tasks to see whether it can be used to prime or improve learning and cognitive performance in humans[7,8]. The potential mechanisms whereby rTMS might accelerate learning remain unknown
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