Evidence map›Paper›PMID 25229738›Full record

Trial reportThe journal of spinal cord medicine2014

Failure of spinal paired associative stimulation to induce neuroplasticity in the human corticospinal tract.

Steven C McGie, Kei Masani, Milos R Popovic

Open access · greenAbstract readRandomized Controlled Trial
In one paragraph

Trial report in The journal of spinal cord medicine, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
6citing papers in PubMed
0.8field-weighted citation impact, top 24% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

6 citing papers in PubMed, 16 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. Neurostimulation for Stroke Rehabilitation.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2021
    Review
  4. Article
  5. Letter to the Editor.The journal of spinal cord medicine · 2015
    Article
  6. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.

Steven C McGie
Kei Masani
Milos R Popovic
University of Toronto · CA

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

CONTEXT/

objectivePaired associative stimulation (PAS) involves paired-stimulation pulses at both the head (via transcranial magnetic stimulation) and the periphery (via peripheral nerve stimulation). The purpose of PAS, when applied to the spinal cord, is to induce neuroplasticity and upregulate the corticospinal tract leading to effector muscles. While limited research has suggested that it is possible to produce neuroplasticity through spinal PAS, all such studies have provided stimulation at a fixed frequency of 0.1 or 0.2 Hz. DESIGN/

interventionsThe present study therefore sought to compare the effectiveness of a typical 0.1 Hz paradigm with a 1 Hz paradigm, and a paradigm which provided stimulation in 5 Hz "bursts". Two inter-stimulus intervals were tested: one which was expected to produce synchronous pre- and post-synaptic activation at the spinal synapse, and one which was not. The peripheral stimulation was applied at the wrist, to induce thumb adduction.

resultsNone of the paradigms were able to successfully induce neuroplasticity in a consistent manner.

conclusionThe high between-subject variability in this study suggests that responses to the spinal PAS treatment may have been highly individual. This serves to highlight a potential limitation of the spinal PAS treatment, which is that its effectiveness may not be universal, but rather dependent on each specific recipient. This may be a challenge faced by spinal PAS should it continue to be tested as a potential novel therapy.

Indexed as

Neuronal PlasticityAdultCombined Modality TherapyEvoked Potentials, MotorFemaleHumansMaleMiddle AgedMuscle ContractionPyramidal TractsReference ValuesTranscranial Magnetic StimulationTranscutaneous Electric Nerve StimulationTreatment FailureTreatment OutcomeElectric stimulation therapyNeuroplasticitySpinal cordTranscranial magnetic stimulation

Identifiers

PMID25229738
PMCPMC4166191
OpenAlexW2003580500

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.