Reliability of Motor Evoked Potentials in Single Pulse and rTMS Protocols on Healthy Individuals

Led by Mirja Osnabrügge and Carolina Kanig
Institute of Psychology, Universität der Bundeswehr München, Neubiberg, Germany.
Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany.
Motor evoked potentials (MEPs) elicited by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over the primary motor cortex (M1) are used as a neurophysiological marker of cortical excitability in daily clinical and scientific practice. Also the repeated application of TMS pulses, termed repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is commonly used as tool to alter neuronal activity for some time beyond stimulation. Still, the reliability of MEPs has not been clarified. Thus, our goal is to identify protocol parameters that are capable of producing a reliable MEP measurement and to extract and compare retest-reliabilities of different rTMS protocols. According to PRISMA guidelines, two authors conducted a systematic literature research in PubMed. The articles identified as eligible were rated in terms of eligibility and methodical criteria with a standardized instrument (checklist of Chipchase et al., 2012). For inter-rater reliability we conducted Cohen’s Kappa. Results mirror the heterogeneity of MEPs and suggest methodological improvements in (r)TMS setups and applications.
For more webinars, visit www.brainbox-initiative.com