Transcranial magnetic stimulation in child neurology

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a non-invasive brain stimulation used for research and diagnostic purposes, as well as for the treatment of a number of diseases as one of the methods of neuromodulation. In pediatrics, TMS is most often used to assess the normal maturation of the corticospinal tract when stimulating the motor areas of the cortex of healthy children with a short single pulse magnetic stimulus, and recording motor evoked potentials from different muscles of the upper and lower extremities, as well as calculating the central motor conduction time. This technique is also used in pediatric neurology to determine conduction disturbances of the pulse along the corticospinal tract and to test neuroplasticity in damage to motor areas of the cerebral cortex and descending motor pathways in such diseases as cerebral palsy, stroke, and multiple sclerosis. Another aspect of TMS application is the evaluation of cortical inhibitory mechanisms with an assessment of the indices of the cortical silent period and the ipsilateral silent period, which often change with central nervous system lesions. With TMS it is also possible to map the cortical representation of a particular muscle, which is used to evaluate functional changes of the cerebral cortex in various neurological diseases. For an accurate implementation of the TMS mapping technique, complex navigation equipment must be currently used with focal TMS. The article describes in detail these and other diagnostic methods of TMS used in child neurology. The possibilities of the therapeutic use of repetitive TMS in childrens neurological diseases are considered in separate sections.