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- Title
Utility of Transcranial Magnetic Simulation in Studying Upper Motor Neuron Dysfunction in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.
- Authors
Geevasinga, Nimeshan; Van den Bos, Mehdi; Menon, Parvathi; Vucic, Steve
- Abstract
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is characterised by progressive dysfunction of the upper and lower motor neurons. The disease can evolve over time from focal limb or bulbar onset to involvement of other regions. There is some clinical heterogeneity in ALS with various phenotypes of the disease described, from primary lateral sclerosis, progressive muscular atrophy and flail arm/leg phenotypes. Whilst the majority of ALS patients are sporadic in nature, recent advances have highlighted genetic forms of the disease. Given the close relationship between ALS and frontotemporal dementia, the importance of cortical dysfunction has gained prominence. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a noninvasive neurophysiological tool to explore the function of the motor cortex and thereby cortical excitability. In this review, we highlight the utility of TMS and explore cortical excitability in ALS diagnosis, pathogenesis and insights gained from genetic and variant forms of the disease.
- Subjects
AMYOTROPHIC lateral sclerosis; MOTOR neurons; SPINAL muscular atrophy; TRANSCRANIAL magnetic stimulation; GENETIC variation; FRONTOTEMPORAL lobar degeneration
- Publication
Brain Sciences (2076-3425), 2021, Vol 11, Issue 7, p906
- ISSN
2076-3425
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3390/brainsci11070906