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Updated: Feb 24, 2026

Evaluation of Hemisphere Lateralization with Bilateral Local Field Potential Recording in Secondary Motor Cortex of Mice
Published on: July 31, 2019
Left hemispheric breakdown of LTP-like cortico-cortical plasticity in schizophrenic patients
Michele Ribolsi1, Giulia Lisi2, Viviana Ponzo3
1Dipartimento di Medicina dei Sistemi, Clinica Psichiatrica, Università di Roma Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy; Non-invasive Brain Stimulation Unit, Laboratorio di Neurologia Clinica e Comportamentale, Fondazione Santa Lucia IRCCS, Via Ardeatina 306, 00179 Rome, Italy.
Objective:
Altered cortical connectivity and plasticity seems to be asymmetrical between the hemispheres in patients with schizophrenia (SCZ). We evaluated long-term potentiation (LTP) in parietal-frontal circuits of both hemispheres using a cortico-cortical Paired Associative Stimulation (cc-PAS) protocol testing the rules of Hebbian-like spike timing dependent plasticity (SPTD).
Methods:
12 SCZ and 12 healthy subjects (HS) underwent a cc-PAS protocol to activate, by means of paired pulses of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), the short-latency connection between posterior parietal cortex (PPC) and primary motor cortex (M1) of both hemispheres. Motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) were collected to assess the time course of the after effects of cc-PAS protocol measuring MEP amplitude as index of cortico-cortical associative plasticity.
Results:
While HS showed a similar time course of LTP-like plasticity in the two hemispheres, SCZ revealed a weaker late-LTP-like plasticity in the left compared to the right hemisphere after cc-PAS protocol.
Conclusions:
SCZ failed to show the typical long-lasting increase of M1 excitability observed after cc-PAS protocol in both hemispheres, with a greater reduction in the left one.
Significance:
Our findings provide novel neurophysiological evidence for an asymmetric impairment of the left parietal-frontal network in SCZ patients.
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