PMC5998194_01
Daily experimental design for both MD patient and control participant. The graph represents the three daily phases of the experiment: behavioral and neurophysiological indexes were measured both before (prestimulation) and after (poststimulation) each stimulation session with low-frequency rTMS (1 Hz) on the left M1 (stimulation). The kinematic behavioral assessment (KB and KT) consisted of two tasks: finger abduction (task 1) and reach-to-grasp (task 2). In the neurophysiological assessment (NB and NT), the resting motor threshold was measured to assess corticospinal excitability variations. This protocol was repeated for five consecutive days.
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fig1
Experiment setup. A 3D optoelectronic SMART-D system was used to track the kinematics of the participant's right hand by means of six video cameras (a). TMS coil placement over the participant's left M1 hand area (b). Example of a TMS-evoked MEP (c). The targeted second dorsal interosseous (SDI) muscle (d).
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fig2
Six digital video cameras with a frequency of 140 Hz were placed in a semicircle around the table (at 1-1.2 m away) to detect the markers (see Figure 2(a)). The cylinder was placed on a target platform, located at a distance of 350 mm from the starting platform, for consistent replacing (Figure 2(a)). TMS pulses were delivered, he was asked to observe a white fixation cross on black background presented in the center of a monitor. TMS-induced MEPs were acquired from the participant's SDI muscle of the right hand (Figure 2(c)). EMG activity was recorded through pairs of surface Ag-AgCl surface electrodes (9 mm diameter) placed in a belly-tendon montage, with the active electrodes over the SDI muscle and the reference electrodes over the corresponding metacarpophalangeal joint (Figure 2(d)). OSP by a mechanical arm (Manfrotto, Italy) and its position and orientation were recorded and loaded into a neuronavigation system (SofTaxic Optic, EMS, Bologna, Italy; Figure 2(b)). Once the OSP was found, the individual resting motor threshold (rMT):defined as the lowest stimulus intensity at which TMS is able to generate MEPs of at least 50 muV in relaxed muscles in 5 out of 10 consecutive pulses :was determined. rMT was then measured every day before and after the rTMS protocol to test possible variations of corticospinal excitability.
Graphical representation of the squared difference between (i) each data point and its subsequent value in the series (lined squares) and (ii) each data point and the average of the series (dotted squares) in the case of an oriented trend (a) and in the case of stationary data (b).
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fig3
The smaller the ratio, the higher the C, the higher the probability that the data do follow some sort of oriented trend (Figure 3).