Evaluating the effect of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation on disorders of consciousness by using TMS-EEG

Background:The modulation efficacy of Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) on consciousness improvement of patient with disorder of consciousness (DOC) has not been definitely confirmed. Objective:This study proposes TMS-EEG to assess effects of repetitive TMS (rTMS) on brain modulation of DOC.Me...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Yang Bai, Xiaoyu Xia, Jiannan Kang, Xiaoxiao Yin, Yi Yang, Jianghong He, Xiaoli Li
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2016-10-01
Series:Frontiers in Neuroscience
Subjects:
EEG
Online Access:http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnins.2016.00473/full
Description
Summary:Background:The modulation efficacy of Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) on consciousness improvement of patient with disorder of consciousness (DOC) has not been definitely confirmed. Objective:This study proposes TMS-EEG to assess effects of repetitive TMS (rTMS) on brain modulation of DOC.Methods: Twenty sessions of 10Hz rTMS were applied over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex for a patient with DOC. Measures of Coma Recovery Scale-Revised (CRS-R) score, TMS-evoked potential (TEP), perturbation complexity index (PCI) and global mean field power (GMFP) were used to evaluate the consciousness level of the patient at three intervals: before the rTMS protocol (T0), immediately after one session rTMS (T1) and immediately after twenty sessions (T2).Results:It was found that the patient was diagnosed of a minimally conscious state minus (MCS-) by means of CRS-R at the interval of T0, however the TEP and PCI indicated the patient was vegetative state (VS). At the interval of T1, there was not any clinical behavioral improvement in CRS-R, but we could find significant changes in TEP, PCI and GMFP. At the interval of T2 there was a significant increase of consciousness level according by CRS-R score, PCI value, TEP and GMFP after twenty sessions of 10Hz rTMS on the patient with DOC. Conclusions:We demonstrated that TMS-EEG might be an efficient assessment tool for evaluating rTMS protocol therapeutic efficiency in DOC.
ISSN:1662-453X