Study on Effect of Different Pulses of rTMS on Visual Working Memory in Elderly With SCD.

Abstract

Previous research has shown that rTMS improves visual working memory (VWM) performance in older people with subjective cognitive decline (SCD). However, the influence of stimulation parameters on the effect is unclear. We focus on the total number of stimulus pulses and aim to investigate whether 10 Hz rTMS with different total pulses could have different effects on VWM in SCD subjects. 10 Hz rTMS with different total pulses targeting the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC)was applied to 34 SCD subjects who completed both neuropsychological tests and EEG for the VWM task. Different EEG techniques were used simultaneously to investigate the effect of different numbers of rTMS pulses. Our study found that an increased number of 10 Hz rTMS pulses targeting the left DLPFC with increased cortical excitability, higher power of gamma oscillations and optimized allocation of attentional resources can achieve greater improvement in VWM in SCD subjects.