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Background: Pairing peripheral electrical stimulation (ES) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) increases corticospinal excitability when applied with a specific temporal pattern. When the two stimulation techniques are applied separately, motor imagery (MI)-related oscillatory modulation amplifies both ES-related cortical effects—sensorimotor event-related desynchronization (ERD), and TMS-induced peripheral responses—motor-evoked potentials (MEP). However, the influence of brain self-regulation on the associative pairing of these stimulation techniques is still unclear.Objective: The aim of this pilot study was to investigate the effects of MI-related ERD during associative ES and TMS on subsequent corticospinal excitability.Method: The paired application of functional electrical stimulation (FES) of the extensor digitorum communis (EDC) muscle and subsequent single-pulse TMS (110% resting motor threshold (RMT)) of the contralateral primary motor cortex (M1) was controlled by beta-band (16–22 Hz) ERD during MI of finger extension and applied within a brain-machine interface environment in six healthy subjects. Neural correlates were probed by acquiring the stimulus-response curve (SRC) of both MEP peak-to-peak amplitude and area under the curve (AUC) before and after the intervention.Result: The application of approximately 150 pairs of associative FES and TMS resulted in a significant increase of MEP amplitudes and AUC, indicating that the induced increase of corticospinal excitability was mediated by the recruitment of additional neuronal pools. MEP increases were brain state-dependent and correlated with beta-band ERD, but not with the background EDC muscle activity; this finding was independent of the FES intensity applied.Conclusion: These results could be relevant for developing closed-loop therapeutic approaches such as the application of brain state-dependent, paired associative stimulation (PAS) in the context of neurorehabilitation.

We thank Christoph Braun and Kevin Kern for helpful comments on the manuscript. Furthermore, we thank Sudarshan Sekhar for technical support during the measurements. Data availability statement:The dataset is available for qualified researchers upon reasonable request.Data code statement: All data analysis was performed offline with scripts in MATLAB® and available codes from open source toolboxes that are referenced in the paper.

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