Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 1994 May;44(5):892-8.
doi: 10.1212/wnl.44.5.892.

Akinesia in Parkinson's disease. II. Effects of subthreshold repetitive transcranial motor cortex stimulation

A Pascual-Leone  1 , J Valls-Solé, J P Brasil-Neto, A Cammarota, J Grafman, M Hallett
Affiliations

Akinesia in Parkinson's disease. II. Effects of subthreshold repetitive transcranial motor cortex stimulation

A Pascual-Leone et al. Neurology. 1994 May.

Abstract

We studied the effects of repetitive transcranial stimulation of the motor cortex (rTMS) on choice reaction time (cRT), movement time (MT), and error rate (ER) in a serial reaction-time task in six medicated patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and 10 age-matched normal controls. In normal subjects, subthreshold 5-Hz rTMS did not significantly change cRT, slightly shortened MT, but increased ER. In the patients, rTMS significantly shortened cRT and MT without affecting ER. These effects did not impair procedural learning. Performance on a grooved peg-board test was improved by rTMS in the same PD patients, especially when they were off medications, but worsened in the normal subjects. Repetitive, subthreshold motor cortex stimulation can improve performance in patients with PD and could be useful therapeutically.

PubMed Disclaimer