Ricerc@Sapienza

Objectives: To study the effects of a standard acute medication withdrawal program on short-term cortical plasticity mechanisms in patients with medication overuse headache (MOH). Methods: Thirteen patients with MOH and 16 healthy volunteers underwent repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) over the left motor cortex; in patients with MOH, recordings were performed before and after a 3-week medication withdrawal program. Ten trains of 10 stimuli each (120% resting motor threshold) were delivered at 1 Hz or 5 Hz in two separate sessions in a randomised order.

Background: Repetitive convergent inputs to a single post-synaptic neuron can induce long-term potentiation (LTP) or depression (LTD) of synaptic activity in a spike timing-dependent manner. Objective: Here we set a protocol of visual paired associative stimulation (vPAS) of the primary visual cortex (V1) in humans to induce persistent changes in the excitatory properties of V1 with a spike timing rule.

Background: The purpose of this review is to provide a comprehensive overview of the findings of clinical electrophysiology studies aimed to investigate changes in information processing of migraine with aura patients. Main body: Abnormalities in alpha rhythm power and symmetry, the presence of slowing, and increased information flow in a wide range of frequency bands often characterize the spontaneous EEG activity of MA.

The inhibitory mechanism named backward inhibition (BI) counteracts interference of previous tasks supporting task switching. For instance, if task set A is inhibited when switching to task B, then it should take longer to immediately return to task set A (as occurring in an ABA sequence), as compared to a task set that has not been just inhibited (as occurring in a CBA sequence), because extra time will be needed to overcome the inhibition of task set A. The evidenced prefrontal and cerebellar role in inhibitory control suggests their involvement even in BI.

The two most frequently used techniques for the non-invasive modulation of brain activity are repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). These techniques have repeatedly been used to modulate the activity of a given area within a neuronal network to study pathophysiological changes in migraine. The most freqeuntly stimulated areas are visual and sensorimotor areas.

Background: Recent studies support the therapeutic utility of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation in Parkinson's disease (PD), whose progression is correlated with loss of corticostriatal long-term potentiation and long-term depression. Glial cell activation is also a feature of PD that is gaining increasing attention in the field because astrocytes play a role in chronic neuroinflammatory responses but are also able to manage dopamine (DA) levels.

Given the intrinsic connection between the brain and the heart, a recent body of research emerged with the aim to influence cardiovascular system functioning by non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) methods such as repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcranial direct current stimulation. Despite the implications of cardiovascular activity modulation for therapeutic purposes, such effects of NIBS have not yet been quantified. The aim of this study was to meta-analyze studies on NIBS effects on blood pressure (BP), heart rate (HR) and its variability (HRV).

The primary motor cortex (M1) is highly influenced by premotor/motor areas both within and across hemispheres. Dual site transcranial magnetic stimulation (dsTMS) has revealed interhemispheric interactions mainly at early latencies. Here, we used dsTMS to systematically investigate long-latency causal interactions between right-hemisphere motor areas and the left M1 (lM1). We stimulated lM1 using a suprathreshold test stimulus (TS) to elicit motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) in the right hand.

Mimicry of others' postures and behaviours forms an implicit yet indispensable component of social interactions. However, whereas numerous behavioural studies have investigated the occurrence of mimicry and its social sensitivity, the underlying neurocognitive mechanisms remain elusive. In this study, single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation was used to measure corticospinal facilitation during a naturalistic behaviour observation task adapted from the behavioural mimicry literature.