Adj. Prof. Pantelis Lioumis | Functional, structural and causal cortical mapping by means of navigated TMS: State-of-the-art and beyond

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a non-invasive brain stimulation technique that can perturb neurons and hence allow studying cortical excitability and brain state. When it is combined with individual MRIs and neuronavigation, navigated TMS (nTMS) can be deployed into a very reliable mapping technique for the motor and speech functions. When we combine nTMS with EEG we can study local reactivity but also connectivity and brain state, in healthy conditions (e.g. different sleep stages), or pathological ones (depression, coma, stroke etc.). Thus, nTMS-EEG can be proved also a crucial tool to map different brain circuits and become biomarker for various psychiatric and neurological disorders. In this talk, I will summarize the work that has been initiated in BioMag laboratory at the Helsinki University central hospital in the fields of motor and speech cortical mapping for presurgical evaluation and also the work on nTMS-EEG. Then, I will focus on the evolution of these techniques by means of functional and structural neuroimaging guidance of TMS and TMS–EEG and then I will show how we envision in Aalto university the future of TMS by introducing the multi-locus TMS technology.