Researchers at the Ruhr University of Bochum, Germany, have successfully implemented a special form of classical conditioning. They demonstrated in a group of 75 people that the effects of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) can be activated only by hearing a tone. Professor Burkhard Pleger from the Department of Neurology at the Berufsgenossenschaftliches Universitätsklinikum Bergmannsheil describes the results together with medical doctoral students Stefan Ewers and Timo Dreier and other colleagues in the journal. scientific reportsposted online April 16, 2023.
Magnetic stimulation triggers contraction of the thumb muscle.
To perform TMS, a magnetic coil is placed externally over a specific part of the brain. The strong magnetic field stimulates the underlying nerve cells to activate. If a certain area of the motor cortex is stimulated in this way, the index finger or thumb, for example, will move. For their research, the Bochum-based team used so-called paired-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). This involved two TMS stimuli twelve milliseconds apart, which leads to a stronger contraction of a muscle than a single TMS. In the conditioning phase, the researchers always combined this paired pulse TMS with a tone that the participants heard through headphones while the TMS was applied.
Conditioning tone intensifies muscle contraction.
In the test phase, the participants were no longer exposed to double TMS, but only to a single TMS pulse, combined with the conditioned tone or with a tone that the participants had not heard before. At the same time, the researchers once again measured the intensity of the muscle contraction in the thumb: it was significantly stronger when the participants heard the conditioned tone, as opposed to the tone they had not heard during conditioning.
Conditioning could be useful for therapeutic applications
“Our basic research shows that traditional conditioning does not only work with conscious behavior patterns,” concludes Burkhard Pleger. “Brain activity can also be conditioned when manipulated through external brain stimulation.” This is interesting because TMS can also be used as a therapeutic approach, for example to improve mobility in people with Parkinson’s disease or to treat depression. “In general, the effects of TMS are only temporary. They disappear if stimulation is not continued. If these effects could be maintained using conditioned tones, therapy could become much easier,” as Pleger describes one of the potential benefits of TMS. investigation.
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