Research findings from a research group led by Assistant Professor Daisuke Kudo (Department of Physical Therapy) and Professor Tomofumi Yamaguchi of Kyoto University (Visiting Professor at this university), among others, have been published in Neuromodulation: Technology at the Neural Interface.

In this study, the team investigated whether adjusting the stimulation frequency of intermittent theta burst stimulation (iTBS) to match an individual’s brain rhythms can produce stronger and longer-lasting effects, while also reducing inter-individual variability.

Thirty healthy adults received 190 seconds of stimulation over the left primary motor cortex under three conditions: (1) individualized iTBS, (2) conventional iTBS, and (3) sham stimulation. In the individualized iTBS condition, the iTBS parameters were optimized to match the peak beta-band frequency of corticomuscular coherence. As a result, motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) increased immediately after individualized iTBS, and this increase persisted for up to 50 minutes. Conventional iTBS showed an immediate increase in MEPs in some participants, but the effect did not persist, while sham stimulation showed no significant change. In addition, the proportion of responders was 62.5% for individualized iTBS and 37.5% for conventional iTBS.

These results suggest that personalizing stimulation settings to an individual’s brain rhythms may improve the consistency and effectiveness of brain stimulation used in rehabilitation.

Article Title: Individualized Beta Frequency Intermittent Theta Burst Stimulation Enhances Corticospinal Plasticity in Healthy Adults.

Authors: Daisuke Kudo, Mitsuhiro Nito, Akio Kikuchi, Shigeo Tanabe, Tomofumi Yamaguchi.

Journal: Neuromodulation: Technology at the Neural Interface

URL (DOI): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neurom.2025.10.069