Effect of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation on rate of memory acquisition

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) may temporarily accelerate knowledge acquisition by neural networks, possibly by promoting rapid Hebbian learning. The authors tested this hypothesis in 20 normal subjects by comparing the impact of 25 minutes of high-frequency left dorsolateral prefrontal rTMS with that of sham rTMS on subsequent knowledge acquisition in several procedural and declarative memory domains. No significant group effects, positive or negative, were noted for any memory acquisition test, but prefrontal rTMS did reduce motor evoked potential threshold.