Publication Reference
Chou, Y. H., Hickey, P. T., Sundman, M., Song, A. W., & Chen, N. K. (2015). Effects of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation on motor symptoms in Parkinson’s disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA neurology, 72(4), 432-440.
Article Summary*
In this comprehensive meta-analysis, the authors systematically evaluated the effectiveness of rTMS versus sham for improving motor functions in PD. From 20 studies containing 470 participants with PD they observed that rTMS led to moderate clinically-important improvements in motor symptoms, with a statistically significant effect size versus sham. In particular it was observed that motor benefits were associated with high frequency (≥5Hz) rTMS over the primary motor area (M1) or low frequency (≤1Hz) rTMS over other frontal areas. These benefits were not found to be affected by the co-administration of medications and were present both short-term (within 1 day) and long-term (up to 12 weeks) after treatment completion. The mean intensity of rTMS was 95% of resting or active motor threshold, with a mean number of rTMS sessions of approximately 6 (range 1-15 sessions), with total number of pulses per session ranging from 60 to 3000. Greater benefits were observed with increasing numbers of pulses within and across sessions. No severe adverse effects were observed in any of the studies.
*For original abstract/publication see the link below.