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. 2008 Jan 29;18(8):1909–1922. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhm218

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© 2008 The Authors

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Figure 2. — Corticospinal excitability. (A) Group means values for resting (A1) and active (A2) motor thresholds in the UH and AH are shown at the principal time points. Thresholds are shown here as the logarithm of percentage of maximum stimulator output. The value described as acute has been determined in each patient as the mean of all values within the first 3 weeks. Time has differing effects on rMT in the 2 hemispheres—thresholds are initially raised in the AH and subsequently reduce but do not significantly change in the UH. For aMTs, there is a trend reduction in the AH from the acute period to 3 months but no time × hemisphere interaction and no Time effect across all 4 time points (see text for ANOVA details). Both rMT and aMT are significantly higher in the AH than the UH during the acute period (paired t-tests: * P < 0.05), but this difference is not significant later. rMT values in the AH are raised compared with the healthy group only during the acute period, whereas aMT values are also raised at 3 months (unpaired t-tests: † P < 0.05, corrected for multiple comparisons). (B) Group means for the first 3 measurements of aMT in each patient are shown—these were taken 10.1 (±1.3), 13.3 (±1.4), and 17.3 (±1.9) days after the stroke (mean ± standard error). There is a significant time × hemisphere interaction across these 3 time points, explained by a significant increase in aMT in the AH between the first and third measurements (paired t-test: * P = 0.009—see text for ANOVA details). Thus, an increase in aMT in this early period is followed by a reduction in thresholds between months 1 and 3 (Fig. 2A). (C) Group means are shown for RC gradients in either hemisphere at the principal time points. There is a significant time × hemisphere interaction across the 4 time points, but no effect of Time on either hemisphere alone (significant effect of Hemisphere). From the acute period to 6 months, there is also a significant equivalent interaction, explained by a significant decrease in excitability in the UH (paired t-test: * P < 0.05) and a trend increase in the AH (P = 0.059). Excitability in the AH is significantly reduced with respect to the UH at the first 2 time points (paired t-tests: * P < 0.05, ** P < 0.01), but this difference is not significant at later time points. Compared with the healthy control group, RC gradients are significantly reduced in the AH at all time points (unpaired t-tests: †† P < 0.01, † P < 0.05, corrected for multiple comparisons), whereas those in the UH are not significantly different from normal.

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