Transcranial magnetic stimulation of the motor sytem in focal dystonia

Several lines of evidence suggest that focal task-specific hand dystonia represents a model for maladaptive plasticity of the sensorimotor cortex. A dysfunction of homeostatic processes that stabilize the properties of neuronal circuits may be a candidate mechanism to trigger and maintain these maladaptive changes. To test this hypothesis, we combined transcranial direct current stimulation (TDCS) and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) at a rate of 1Hz to probe “homeostatic-like“ mechanisms in the intact primary motor cortex (M1) in patients with writer's cramp. Confirming our previous work (Sie…