A combined study of MEG and pico-Tesla TMS on children with autism disorder

Abstract

Magnetoencephalographic (MEG) recordings from the brain of 10 children with autism (6 boys and 4 girls, with ages range from 5-12 years, mean[Formula: see text][Formula: see text][Formula: see text]SD: 8.3[Formula: see text][Formula: see text][Formula: see text]2.1) were obtained using a whole-head 122-channel MEG system in a magnetically shielded room of low magnetic noise. A double-blind experimental design was used in order to look for possible effect of external pico-Tesla Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (pT-TMS). The pT-TMS was applied on the brain of the autistic children with proper field characteristics (magnetic field amplitude: 1-7.5[Formula: see text]pT, frequency: the alpha - rhythm of the patient 8-13[Formula: see text]Hz). After unblinding it was found a significant effect of an increase of frequencies in the range of 2-7[Formula: see text]Hz across the subjects followed by an improvement and normalization of their MEG recordings. The statistical analysis of our results showed a statistical significance at 6 out of 10 patients (60%). It is also observed an increase of alpha activity in autistic children at the end of one month after pT-TMS treatment at home. In conclusion, the application of pT-TMS has the prospective to be a noninvasive, safe and important modality in the management of autism children.

Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation for Treatment of Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…Four of these papers were case-reports (Enticott et al, 2011 ; Niederhofer, 2012 ; Cristancho et al, 2014 ; Avirame et al, 2017 ), 7 were non-controlled trials (Sokhadze et al, 2010 , 2016 , 2017 ; Casanova et al, 2014 ; Wang et al, 2016 ; Abujadi et al, 2017 ; Gómez et al, 2017 ) and the remaining 12 were controlled trials (Sokhadze et al, 2009 , 2012 , 2014a , b ; Baruth et al, 2010 ; Fecteau et al, 2011 ; Casanova et al, 2012 ; Enticott et al, 2012 , 2014 ; Panerai et al, 2014 ; Anninos et al, 2016 ; Ni et al, 2017 ). Six of the controlled studies used sham rTMS as the control intervention (Fecteau et al, 2011 ; Enticott et al, 2012 , 2014 ; Panerai et al, 2014 ; Anninos et al, 2016 ; Ni et al, 2017 ) while the remaining 6 compared rTMS-treated patients with wait-list controls. Three studies recruited exclusively adult subjects to the experimental arm (Fecteau et al, 2011 ; Enticott et al, 2014 ; Ni et al, 2017 ), with the remainder focusing predominantly on children and adolescents.…”

“…One study used a pico-Tesla TMS protocol (Anninos et al, 2016 ) while two others used TBS protocols (Abujadi et al, 2017 ; Ni et al, 2017 ). Pico-Tesla TMS is a technology invented and used by a specific research group (Anninos and Tsagas, 1995 ).…”

“…It uses a modified helmet containing up to 122 coils arranged in several arrays. This allows for delivery of low-intensity transcranial magnetic stimulation, at the pico-Tesla level (1 pico-Tesla = 10 −12 Tesla), simultaneously to several brain areas, at frequencies of 2–7 Hz (Anninos et al, 2016 ). The remaining studies used other, more conventional rTMS methods.…”

“…Panerai et al ( 2014 ) stimulated the left premotor cortex (and in a subgroup of patients also the right premotor cortex) at 8 Hz, while Enticott et al ( 2012 ) chose to stimulate the left primary motor cortex and supplementary motor area with 1 Hz rTMS. The pico-Tesla TMS trial targeted stimulation to the vertex, frontal and occipital cortex, left and right parietal cortex, and left and right temporal cortex, at frequencies of 8–13 Hz (Anninos et al, 2016 ). Treatment schedules also varied widely.…”

Overexpression of microRNA‑936 suppresses non‑small cell lung cancer cell proliferation and invasion via targeting E2F2

“…A previous study also revealed that miR-185 was downregulated and suppressed pancreatic cell proliferation by targeting transcriptional coactivator with PDZ-binding motif in pancreatic cancer (10). Furthermore, several miRs are reported to be promising predictors for cancer diagnosis and prognosis (11)(12)(13). Thus, investigation into the roles and functional mechanisms of miRs is crucial to NSCLC therapy.…”