We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
To save content items to your account,
please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies.
If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account.
Find out more about saving content to .
To save content items to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected]
is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings
on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part
of your Kindle email address below.
Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations.
‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi.
‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
By
Pablo A. Celnik, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA,
Leonardo G. Cohen, Human Cortical Physiology Section, NINDS, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA
The human central nervous system (CNS) can change in response to new environmental challenges or lesions. While such changes are more pronounced in the developing brain, they are also present in adults. It has been a widely held belief that these alterations underlie behavioural modifications such as learning new skills or recovery of lost function after injuries. However, until recently there has been little evidence to support this assertion. The development of neuroimaging and neurophysiological techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), positron emission tomography (PET), event-related potentials, electroencephalography (EEG), magnetoencephalography (MEG) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), have demonstrated that neuroplastic modifications have functional implications.
TMS is a non-invasive technique that allows focal delivery of currents into the brain. It is possible to apply TMS to a specific cortical region and disrupt cortical activity there. Evaluation of the behavioural consequences of this disruption describes some of the functions of that part of the brain. TMS can therefore produce a ‘virtual lesion’ that lasts for milliseconds (Gerloff et al., 1997; Amassian et al., 1989). In the presence of brain reorganization, TMS could be applied to the reorganized cortical regions, while the subject performs a specific task. If TMS, by disrupting the activity of that part of the brain, results in altered performance, it could be inferred that the reorganized cortex plays an adaptive role. In this chapter, we will discuss experimental evidence leading to the identification of the functional role of neuroplasticity using TMS.
Recommend this
Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this to your organisation's collection.