Visualizing the effects of rTMS in a patient sample: small N vs. group level analysis.
other · Level V
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- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 21151629.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0015155 and PMC identifier PMC1779172.
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Abstract
The use of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to assess changes in cortical excitability is a tool used with increased prevalence in healthy and impaired populations. One factor of concern with this technique is how to achieve adequate statistical power given constraints of a small number of subjects and variability in responses. This paper compares a single pulse excitability measure using traditional group-level statistics vs single subject analyses in a patient population of subjects with focal hand dystonia, pre and post repetitive TMS (rTMS). Results show significant differences in cortical excitability for 4/5 subjects using a split middle line analysis on plots of individual subject data. Group level statistics (ANOVA), however, did not detect any significant findings. The consideration of single subject statistics for TMS excitability measures may assist researchers in describing the variably of rTMS outcome measures.