Primary motor cortex excitability during recovery after stroke: Implications for neuromodulation

Abstract

Background Non-invasive brain stimulation techniques may be useful adjuvants to promote recovery after stroke. They are typically used to facilitate ipsilesional cortical excitability directly, or indirectly by suppressing contralesional cortical excitability and reducing interhemispheric inhibition from the contralesional to ipsilesional hemisphere. However, most of the evidence for this approach comes from studies of patients at the chronic stage of recovery. Hypothesis We hypothesized that corticomotor excitability and interhemispheric inhibition would initially be asymmetric, with greater interhemispheric inhibition from contralesional to ipsilesional M1. We also hypothesized that balanc..