Involvement of different neuronal components in the induction of cortical plasticity with associative stimulation

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE Paired associative stimulation (PAS), with stimulus interval of 21.5 or 25 ms, using transcranial magnetic stimulation in the posterior-anterior (PA) current direction, produces a long-term-potentiation-like effect. Stimulation with PA directed current generates both early and late indirect (I)-waves while that in anterior-posterior (AP) current predominantly elicits late I-waves. Short interval intracortical inhibition (SICI) inhibits late I-waves but not early I-waves.To investigate how cortical inhibition modulates the effects of PAS.