Theta burst stimulation suppresses movement-related activity in the stimulated motor cortex but the motor system can cope with it

Background: Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) can be used to examine the functional relevance of brains regions by inducing functional lesions. Several conditioning protocols have been established which induce a lasting suppression of cortical excitability and interfere with neuronal processing in the stimulated cortex beyond the time of TMS. Here we used continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS) to suppress cortical excitability in the left primary motor hand area (M1) and examined how the cTBS-induced lesion effects changes regional activity in the motor system in the context of motor skill learning. Met…