Treatment of neurological disorders by quadripulse stimulation (QPS): basic mechanisms and clinical trials

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The neuronal adaptation or new information acquisition of human brain, such as studies in sports or schools, is known to be produced by synaptic plasticity in our brain. We developed a new transcranial magnetic stimulation method to induce such synaptic plasticity, long-term potentiation or depression (LTP/LTD), in the human brain (quadripulse stimulation (QPS)). In these three years, we have confirmed the safety of QPS and shown that the plasticity is able to be induced in the sensory cortex in addition to the motor cortex. The metabolic changes in the brain after QPS have been studied by functional MRI and also near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). We showed that the QPS effect was not affected by BDNF polymorphism, which is superior to other stimulation methods affected by BDNF polymorphism. We have alsoreported a clinical efficacy of rTMS on motor symptoms in patients with Parkinson’s disease.