Attenuation of N2 amplitude of laser-evoked potentials by theta burst stimulation of primary somatosensory cortex

Theta burst stimulation (TBS) is a special repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) paradigm, where bursts of low-intensity stimuli are applied in the theta frequency. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of neuronavigated TBS over primary somatosensory cortex (SI) on laser-evoked potentials (LEPs) and acute pain perception induced with Tm : YAG laser stimulation. The amplitude changes of the N1, N2, and P2 components of LEPs and related subjective pain rating scores of 12 healthy subjects were analyzed prior to and following continuous TBS (cTBS), intermittent TBS (iTBS), intermediate TBS (imTBS), and sham stimulation. Our results demonstrate that all active TBS paradigms significantly diminished the amplitude of the N2 component, when the hand contralateral to the site of TBS was laser-stimulated. Sham stimulation condition had no significant effect. The subjective pain perception also decreased during the experimental sessions, but did not differ significantly from the sham stimulation condition. The main finding of our study is that TBS over SI diminished the amplitude of the N2 component evoked from the contralateral side without any significant analgesic effects. Furthermore, imTBS produced responses similar to those observed by other forms of TBS induced excitability changes in the SI.