Are individual responses to theta-burst rTMS in cortical excitability related to changes in motor network connectivity?

Intermittent theta-burst stimulation (iTBS) effectively increases cortical excitability within the human brain (Huang et al., 2005). However, individual after-effects of iTBS vary between subjects, with a large proportion not responding at all in terms of changes in excitability (Ridding and Ziemann, 2010; Hamada et al., 2013). We here investigated whether subjects responding to iTBS show differential changes in resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) within the cortical motor system compared to subjects with no response. 14 healthy, right-handed subjects (m = 7, 27 ± 3 years) received iTBS over the left pr…