QTMS Cortical Excitability Protocols for Solo TMS Operators

QtracW is increasingly being used for microneurography, muscle excitability testing and cortical excitability testing with transcranial magnetic stimulation.  Although control of magnetic stimulators has been possible for several years under standard QtracS protocols, Prof. Hugh Bostock and his colleagues at QTMS Science Ltd. have recently launched a new QTMSG recording suite specifically aimed at TMS users, allowing a solo operator to run QtracW TMS protocols and obtain standardized recordings automatically.  This software is now available exclusively from Digitimer Ltd.

Here we share with you an open-access video article published in the Journal of Visual Experiments, where Prof. Hatice Tankisi (Aarhus University Hospital) and colleagues present the suite of standardized single- and paired-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) recording protocols, which include options for conventional amplitude measurements and threshold-tracking.  At present, this program can control three different types of magnetic stimulators and is designed to enable all tests to be performed conveniently by a single operator.

Major features of QTMS

In addition to resting motor threshold (RMT), stimulus response function (SRF) and cortical silent period (CSP), this QTMSG suite comprises short interval intracortical inhibition and facilitation (SICI, SICF), long interval cortical inhibition (LICI), and short latency afferent inhibition (SAI).  In each case, conventional tests can be compared directly with two corresponding threshold-tracking versions, serial and parallel.  In the serial tracking versions, as in the TRONDNF nerve excitability protocols, test-alone stimuli on one channel are compared with conditioning+test stimuli on another, and the interstimulus interval (ISI)changed in steps.