Journal
ACTA PHYSIOLOGICA
Volume 207, Issue 2, Pages 385-396Publisher
WILEY-BLACKWELL
DOI: 10.1111/apha.12032
Keywords
intensity; ipsilateral corticospinal excitability; motor evoked potentials; time-course; transcranial magnetic stimulation
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Funding
- Australian Research Council [DP1093193]
- Australian Research Council [DP1093193] Funding Source: Australian Research Council
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Aim In previous studies, unilateral ballistic training either increased or decreased corticospinal excitability for the untrained opposite limb. The objective here was to investigate whether these discrepancies can be explained by methodological differences such as the intensity of stimulation assessing excitability or the timing of excitability testing after training. Methods Motor evoked potentials (MEP) were elicited by stimulating the ipsilateral cortex at high intensity (70% MEPmax) and low intensity (20% MEPmax) at specific time-points after performance of 300 ballistic movements of the index finger. Results Ballistic practice significantly facilitated MEP size for high-intensity stimuli, whereas responses to low-intensity stimulation were variable. MEP sizes at individual time-points were not significantly facilitated until 4 min after training, although there was no difference between early and late responses when grouped over multiple time-points. Conclusions The data indicate that previous discrepancies in ipsilateral responses to ballistic training cannot be attributed to specific procedures used to assess corticospinal excitability as there was no tendency towards depression of MEP amplitude at any point post-exercise for both testing intensities. This suggests that other experimental factors such as locus of attention or availability of visual feedback are more likely to account for the discrepancies.
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