Magnetic stimulation of the human motor cortex: ipsilateral and contralateral facilitation effects

Voluntary contraction of a muscle greatly increases the amplitude and decreases the latency of the motor potentials evoked by electromagnetic coil brain stimulation (facilitation). Facilitation has also been observed with contraction of a nearby ipsilateral and a contralateral homologous muscle. We studied these facilitatory relationships in 5 normal subjects in small hand, forearm and upper arm muscles using surface-recorded compound motor action potentials, single motor unit recordings, and post-stimulus time histograms. There was no evidence for spread of facilitation between any pair of muscles if the muscle from which motor evoked potentials (MEPs) were recorded was completely at rest during brain stimulation, although this sometimes required training to accomplish or could not be achieved. Thus, although spread of facilitation has been observed by others under these conditions, we did not find this effect. There may be significant interindividual variations in the degree of facilitatory spread.