Brain Excitability During Self-Paced Voluntary Movements

Cortical Excitability During Self-Paced Voluntary Movements

This study will use transcranial magnetic stimulation to examine how the brain controls movement by sending messages to the spinal cord and muscles and what goes wrong with this process in disease. Normal healthy volunteers 18 years of age and older may be eligible to participate.

In transcranial magnetic stimulation, an insulated wire coil is placed on the subject's scalp or skin. Brief electrical currents are passed through the coil, creating magnetic pulses that stimulate the brain. During the stimulation, participants will be asked to tense certain muscles slightly or perform other simple actions. The electrical activity of the muscle will be recorded on a computer through electrodes applied to the skin over the muscle. In most cases, the study will last less than 3 hours.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Detailed Description

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of volitional movement on excitability of ipsilateral as well as contralateral motor cortical neurons controlling homologous and surrounding muscles. Transcallosal and surrounding inhibitions are well known phenomenon to suppress unwanted movements during voluntary action, which is often disturbed in various movement disorders. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has been used to investigate these inhibitory mechanisms, but the inhibitory influence during and after voluntary movement has not been well elucidated yet. In normal volunteers, we plan to determine if voluntary movements of one finger influence the cortical excitability responsible for surrounding as well as contralateral homologous muscles, using voluntary movement-triggered TMS. The primary outcome measures would be any changes in motor evoked potential (MEP) size and intracortical inhibition (ICI) parameters.

Study Type

Observational

Enrollment

30

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

    • Maryland
      • Bethesda, Maryland, United States, 20892
        • National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Child
  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Normal adult volunteers 18 or more years old.

Subjects must not have medico-surgical illness.

Subjects must not have neurological illness.

Subjects must not have psychiatric illness.

Subjects must not be taking any medication with potential influence on nervous system function.

Subjects must not have a pacemaker.

Subject must not have an implanted medical pump.

Subjects must not have a metal plate or a metal object in the skull or eye.

Subjects must not have a history of seizure disorder.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

June 1, 2001

Study Completion

June 1, 2002

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

June 23, 2001

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

June 23, 2001

First Posted (Estimate)

June 25, 2001

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimate)

March 4, 2008

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

March 3, 2008

Last Verified

June 1, 2002

More Information

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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