Effect of cervical transcutaneous spinal cord stimulation on sensorimotor cortical activity during upper-limb movements in healthy individuals

McGeady, C., Alam, M., Zheng, Y.-P. and Vuckovic, A. (2022) Effect of cervical transcutaneous spinal cord stimulation on sensorimotor cortical activity during upper-limb movements in healthy individuals. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 11(4), 1043. (doi: 10.3390/jcm11041043) (PMID:35207314) (PMCID:PMC8878243)

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Abstract

Transcutaneous spinal cord stimulation (tSCS) can improve upper-limb motor function after spinal cord injury. A number of studies have attempted to deduce the corticospinal mechanisms which are modulated following tSCS, with many relying on transcranial magnetic stimulation to provide measures of corticospinal excitability. Other metrics, such as cortical oscillations, may provide an alternative and complementary perspective on the physiological effect of tSCS. Hence, the present study recorded EEG from 30 healthy volunteers to investigate if and how cortical oscillatory dynamics are altered by 10 min of continuous cervical tSCS. Participants performed repetitive upper-limb movements and resting-state tasks while tSCS was delivered to the posterior side of the neck as EEG was recorded simultaneously. The intensity of tSCS was tailored to each participant based on their maximum tolerance (mean: 50 ± 20 mA). A control session was conducted without tSCS. Changes to sensorimotor cortical activity during movement were quantified in terms of event-related (de)synchronisation (ERD/ERS). Our analysis revealed that, on a group level, there was no consistency in terms of the direction of ERD modulation during tSCS, nor was there a dose-effect between tSCS and ERD/ERS. Resting-state oscillatory power was compared before and after tSCS but no statistically significant difference was found in terms of alpha peak frequency or alpha power. However, participants who received the highest stimulation intensities had significantly weakened ERD/ERS (10% ERS) compared to when tSCS was not applied (25% ERD; p = 0.016), suggestive of cortical inhibition. Overall, our results demonstrated that a single 10 min session of tSCS delivered to the cervical region of the spine was not sufficient to induce consistent changes in sensorimotor cortical activity among the entire cohort. However, under high intensities there may be an inhibitory effect at the cortical level. Future work should investigate, with a larger sample size, the effect of session duration and tSCS intensity on cortical oscillations.

Item Type:Articles
Additional Information:Funding: This work was supported by RCUK PhD scholarship EP/N509668/1, the University of Glasgow Graduate School Mobility Scholarship, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (UAKB), and the Telefield Charitable Fund (83D1).
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:McGeady, Ciaran and Vuckovic, Dr Aleksandra
Creator Roles:
McGeady, C.Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Data curation, Writing – original draft, Project administration, Visualization
Vuckovic, A.Conceptualization, Validation, Writing – review and editing
Authors: McGeady, C., Alam, M., Zheng, Y.-P., and Vuckovic, A.
College/School:College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Biomedical Engineering
Journal Name:Journal of Clinical Medicine
Publisher:MDPI
ISSN:2077-0383
ISSN (Online):2077-0383
Published Online:17 February 2022
Copyright Holders:Copyright: © 2022 by the authors
First Published:First published in Journal of Clinical Medicine 11(4): 1043
Publisher Policy:Reproduced under a Creative Commons licence

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Project CodeAward NoProject NamePrincipal InvestigatorFunder's NameFunder RefLead Dept
172865EPSRC DTP 16/17 and 17/18Mary Beth KneafseyEngineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)EP/N509668/1Research and Innovation Services