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Updated: Aug 29, 2026

Non-invasive Assessment of Changes in Corticomotoneuronal Transmission in Humans
Published on: May 24, 2017
Motor responses to afferent stimulation in juvenile myoclonic epilepsy
Paolo Manganotti1, Stefano Tamburin, Luigi Giuseppe Bongiovanni
1Department of Neurological Sciences and Vision, Section of Neurological Rehabilitation Clinical Neurology, University of Verona, Verona, Italy.
Purpose:
To document whether the mechanisms responsible for myoclonic jerks in juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME) are similar to those causing other forms of myoclonus.
Methods:
We studied somatosensory evoked potentials, the conditioning effect of cutaneous afferents on motor potentials evoked by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), and intracortical inhibition and facilitation in response to paired TMS in a group of nine patients with JME and 20 normal controls.
Results:
Intracortical inhibition was abnormal, whereas cortical somatosensory evoked potentials and TMS conditioned by cutaneous afferents were unaltered in JME patients.
Conclusions:
Abnormal processing of cutaneous afferents would not appear to contribute to myoclonus in JME.
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