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Updated: Apr 15, 2026
Measuring and Manipulating Functionally Specific Neural Pathways in the Human Motor System with Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
Published on: February 23, 2020
Projecting Navigated TMS Sites on the Gyral Anatomy Decreases Inter-subject Variability of Cortical Motor Maps
Dominic Kraus1, Alireza Gharabaghi1
1Division of Functional and Restorative Neurosurgery, Department of Neurosurgery, Eberhard Karls University Tuebingen, Germany; Division of Translational Neurosurgery, Department of Neurosurgery, Eberhard Karls University Tuebingen, Germany; Neuroprosthetics Research Group, Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neuroscience, Eberhard Karls University Tuebingen, Germany.
Background:
Magnetic resonance images are being increasingly deployed in conjunction with navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation (nTMS) to account for inter-individual differences in brain anatomy as well as to reduce the variability of mapping findings.
Objective:
However, despite the fact that the individual gyral anatomy has a significant impact on the TMS-induced electrical field distributions, these approaches still project the TMS coil positions as a plane grid of target points on the brain surface and fail to account for differences in cortex morphology.
Methods:
In this study, we have introduced a technique for projecting nTMS sites onto the gyral anatomy to decrease the variability of cortical motor maps between subjects in normalized space. This involved interpolating the discrete map points in the normalized volume space and performing additional surface coregistration.
Results:
By applying this technique, we increased the spatial overlap between the cortical maps of the extensor digitorum communis muscle between subjects from 80% to 100%. We also managed to significantly reduce the mean Euclidean distance between the average center of gravity and the average hotspots to the respective individual spots from 8 mm to 6.5 mm.
Conclusion:
Our approach facilitates the study of the functional topography of distinct behavioral properties with high spatial resolution, thereby constituting a valuable tool for precise group analysis of cortical TMS maps.
