Rationale: 75% of all stroke survivors suffer from cognitive deficits in the acute phase, with serious implications for their long-term quality of life and societal participation. A promising novel therapy is repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). Only a handful of studies have attempted to promote cognitive functioning after stroke with rTMS. These studies exclusively used a one-size-fits-all approach, which had limited success, as post-stroke cognitive deficits are highly variable. We propose a two-step personalized treatment strategy to identify targets for therapeutic TMS for cognitive rehabilitation after stroke. Step one consits of identification of personalized TMS targets by measuring fMRI activity during a representative cognitive task. In step two, TMS disruption is used to temporarily disrupt activity in the targeted brain region to investigate causal involvement of a brain area in cognitive task performance. Objective: To validate a proof-of-concept to identify personalized targets for therapeutic TMS for cognitive rehabilitation after stroke. Study design: A prospective mechanistic intervention study. Study population: 10 healthy individuals and 15 stroke patients with cognitive impairment Intervention: Active and sham TMS disruption of personalized targets Main study endpoints: The n-back test
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
OTHER
Masking
SINGLE
Enrollment
25
Active TMS disruption delivered to the personalized target
Sham TMS disruption delivered to the personalized target
Change in n-back test performance
Time frame: during TMS disruption
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