ORIGINAL RESEARCH

Prefrontal cortex transcranial theta-burst stimulation frequency-dependent effects on cognitive functions

About authors

Research Center of Neurology, Moscow, Russia

Correspondence should be addressed: Alexandra G. Poydasheva
Volokolamskoye shosse, 80, Moscow, 125310, Russia; ur.ygoloruen@avehsadyop

About paper

Funding: the study was supported by the Russian Science Foundation (RSF), grant № 22-25-00078, https://www.rscf.ru/project/22-25-00078/

Author contribution: Suponeva NA, Bakulin IS, Poydasheva AG, Piradov MA — study concept; Suponeva NA, Bakulin IS, Poydasheva AG, Sinitsyn DO, Piradov MA — study planning and design; Bakulin IS, Poydasheva AG, Zabirova AH, Lagoda DYu — research procedure and data acquisition; Bakulin IS, Poydasheva AG, Sinitsyn DO, Zabirova AH — data analysis; all authors — data interpretation; Suponeva NA, Bakulin IS, Poydasheva AG — manuscript draft writing; all authors — manuscript editing.

Compliance with ethical standards: the study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Research Center of Neurology (protocol 3-7/22 dated 20 April 2022), it was conducted in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki; the informed consent was submitted by all study participants.

Received: 2023-10-07 Accepted: 2023-11-13 Published online: 2023-12-07
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Theta-burst stimulation (TBS) is widely used due to induction of the long-lasting effects with short protocol duration. To reduce the variability of the effect, approaches to personalize it, such as using theta-gamma coupling frequencies (TGC), are being investigated. The study was aimed to develop the personalized protocol of navigated intermittent theta-burst stimulation (iTBS-ind) based on TGC, and to compare this protocol with the standard one (iTBS-5/50) and sham stimulation (iTBS-sham). The study involved 16 healthy volunteers (М — 7; 29.6 years), who were randomized to receive one session of each protocol of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex iTBS. The effects were estimated using the n-back test with simultaneous presentation of verbal and spatial stimuli (n = 2, 3), Digit Span test, Corsi blocks task, Tower of London test; testing was performed immediately before, immediately after and 60 min after stimulation. No severe adverse events were reported. Significant effect was obtained when performing assessment after 60 min for iTBS-5/50 in the n-back test with spatial stimuli (n = 3) (pcorr = 0.018), for all protocols in the Tower of London test (pcorr = 0.039 for iTBS-5/50, pcorr = 0.045 for iTBS-ind, pcorr = 0.003 for iTBS-sham). The iTBS-5/50 effect was significantly higher compared to iTBS-sham in the spatial n-back test (n = 3) (pcorr = 0.039), but lower compared to iTBS-ind and iTBS-sham in the Corsi blocks task (pcorr = 0.038 and 0.048, respectively). Thus, we failed to confirm the personalized protocol efficacy and superiority to the standard protocol and sham stimulation. Considering the effect of standard protocol, its further investigation can be promising.

Keywords: cognitive functions, transcranial magnetic stimulation, left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, non-invasive neuromodulation, phase-amplitude coupling, theta-gamma coupling, intermittent theta-burst stimulation

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