Assessing Connectivity in stroke patients: the relationship between effective connectivity in the motor system and electrophysiological excitability of the cortico-spinal system i…

Background: Recovery of motor function after stroke varies considerably between patients. Techniques such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) are frequently used to identify predictors of clinical outcome. After stroke ipsilesional motor thresholds are often elevated and tend to decrease over time concurrent to recovery. Likewise, fMRI measures of effective connectivity among motor areas demonstrated pathological coupling to ipsilesional M1. In this study the relationship between the parameters of these two different brain-mapping tools was investigated in…