Work

Combined neurostimulation and neuroimaging in cognitive neuroscience: past, present, and future

Year: 2013

Type: review

Abstract: Modern neurostimulation approaches in humans provide controlled inputs into the operations of cortical regions, with highly specific behavioral consequences. This enables causal structure-function inferences, and in combination with neuroimaging, has provided novel insights into the basic mechanisms of action of neurostimulation on distributed networks. For example, more recent work has established the capacity of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to probe causal interregional influences, and their interaction with cognitive state changes. Combinations of neurostimulation and neuroimaging now face the challenge of integrating the known physiological effects of neurostimulation with theoretical and biological models of cognition, for example, when theoretical stalemates between opposing cognitive theories need to be resolved. This will be driven by novel developments, including biologically informed computational network analyses for predicting the impact of neurostimulation on brain networks, as well as novel neuroimaging and neurostimulation techniques. Such future developments may offer an expanded set of tools with which to investigate structure-function relationships, and to formulate and reconceptualize testable hypotheses about complex neural network interactions and their causal roles in cognition.

Source: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

DOI: 10.1111/nyas.12110

Authors: Sven Bestmann, Eva Feredoes

Institutions: UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, University College London, University of Reading

Language: English

Topic: Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Studies

Subfield: Neurology

Field: Neuroscience

Domain: Life Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $2,026