TY - JOUR
T1 - Towards understanding rTMS mechanism of action
T2 - Stimulation of the DLPFC causes network-specific increase in functional connectivity
AU - Tik, Martin
AU - Hoffmann, André
AU - Sladky, Ronald
AU - Tomova, Livia
AU - Hummer, Allan
AU - Navarro de Lara, Lucia
AU - Bukowski, Henryk
AU - Pripfl, Jürgen
AU - Biswal, Bharat
AU - Lamm, Claus
AU - Windischberger, Christian
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was financially supported by the CREAM project that has been funded by the European Commission under Grant Agreement no 612022 (FP7 ICT 2013-10). This publication reflects the views only of the authors, and the European Commission cannot be held responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. Additional financial support was supplied by the MMI-CNS research cluster (University of Vienna and Medical University of Vienna, FA103FC001 ) and the Austrian National Bank (OeNB, Anniversary Fund No. 14350 ).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Elsevier Inc.
PY - 2017/11/15
Y1 - 2017/11/15
N2 - Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a powerful non-invasive technique for the modulation of brain activity. While the precise mechanism of action is still unknown, TMS is applied in cognitive neuroscience to establish causal relationships between stimulation and subsequent changes in cerebral function and behavioral outcome. In addition, TMS is an FDA-approved therapeutic agent in psychiatric disorders, especially major depression. Successful repetitive TMS in such disorders is usually applied over the left dorso-lateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and treatment response mechanism was therefore supposed to be based on modulations in functional networks, particularly the meso-cortico-limbic reward circuit. However, mechanistic evidence for the direct effects of rTMS over DLPFC is sparse. Here we show the specificity and temporal evolution of rTMS effects by comparing connectivity changes within 20 common independent components in a sham-controlled study. Using an unbiased whole-brain resting-state network (RSN) approach, we successfully demonstrate that stimulation of left DLPFC modulates anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) connectivity in one specific meso-cortico-limbic network, while all other networks are neither influenced by rTMS nor by sham treatment. The results of this study show that the neural correlates of TMS treatment response are also traceable in DLPFC stimulation of healthy brains and therefore represent direct effects of the stimulation procedure.
AB - Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a powerful non-invasive technique for the modulation of brain activity. While the precise mechanism of action is still unknown, TMS is applied in cognitive neuroscience to establish causal relationships between stimulation and subsequent changes in cerebral function and behavioral outcome. In addition, TMS is an FDA-approved therapeutic agent in psychiatric disorders, especially major depression. Successful repetitive TMS in such disorders is usually applied over the left dorso-lateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and treatment response mechanism was therefore supposed to be based on modulations in functional networks, particularly the meso-cortico-limbic reward circuit. However, mechanistic evidence for the direct effects of rTMS over DLPFC is sparse. Here we show the specificity and temporal evolution of rTMS effects by comparing connectivity changes within 20 common independent components in a sham-controlled study. Using an unbiased whole-brain resting-state network (RSN) approach, we successfully demonstrate that stimulation of left DLPFC modulates anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) connectivity in one specific meso-cortico-limbic network, while all other networks are neither influenced by rTMS nor by sham treatment. The results of this study show that the neural correlates of TMS treatment response are also traceable in DLPFC stimulation of healthy brains and therefore represent direct effects of the stimulation procedure.
KW - 1000 Functional connectomes project
KW - Clinical application
KW - ICA
KW - Resting-state
KW - TMS
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U2 - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2017.09.022
DO - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2017.09.022
M3 - Article
C2 - 28912081
AN - SCOPUS:85029528402
SN - 1053-8119
VL - 162
SP - 289
EP - 296
JO - NeuroImage
JF - NeuroImage
ER -