Sensory tetanisation to induce long-term-potentiation-like plasticity: A review and reassessment of the approach.

There is great interest in developing non-invasive approaches for studying cortical plasticity in humans. High-frequency presentation of auditory and visual stimuli, or sensory tetanisation, can induce long-term-potentiation-like (LTP-like) changes in cortical activity. However, contrasting effects across studies suggest that sensory tetanisation may be unreliable. We review these contrasting effects, conduct our own study of auditory and visual tetanisation, and perform meta-analyses to determine the average effect of sensory tetanisation across studies. We measured auditory-evoked amplitude changes in a group of younger (18-29 years of age) and older (55-83 years of age) adults following tetanisation to 1 and 4 kHz tone bursts and following a slow-presentation control. We also measured visual-evoked amplitude changes following tetanisation to horizontal and vertical sign gradients. Auditory and visual response amplitudes decreased following tetanisation, consistent with some studies but contrasting with others finding amplitude increases (i.e. LTP-like changes). Older adults exhibited more modest auditory-evoked amplitude decreases, but visual-evoked amplitude decreases like those of younger adults. Changes in response amplitude were not specific to tetanised stimuli. Importantly, slow presentation of auditory tone bursts produced response amplitude changes approximating those observed following tetanisation in younger adults. Meta-analyses of visual and auditory tetanisation studies found that the overall effect of sensory tetanisation was not significant across studies or study sites. The results suggest that sensory tetanisation may not produce reliable changes in cortical responses and more work is needed to determine the validity of sensory tetanisation as a method for inducing human cortical plasticity in vivo.