ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Hum. Neurosci.
Sec. Brain Imaging and Stimulation
Volume 19 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2025.1551931
This article is part of the Research TopicNon-invasive brain stimulation for chronic pain managementView all 4 articles
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Measures of Corticospinal Excitability in Black and Hispanic/Latino People with Painful Peripheral Neuropathy
Provisionally accepted
Marlon L Wong1*
Lisa McTeague2
Gabriel Gonzalez1Juan Gonzalez1Jessica Bolanos1Peter J Hosein1
Danylo F Cabral3
Peter J Fried3- 1University of Miami, Coral Gables, United States
- 2Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina, United States
- 3Berenson-Allen Center for Noninvasive Brain Stimulation, Boston, Maryland, United States
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This study aims to provide preliminary descriptive data on transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) measures obtained in Black and Hispanic/Latino individuals with chronic painful peripheral neuropathy (PN), including those with chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) and diabetic neuropathy (DN). Both CIPN and DN share similar neuropathic symptoms and underlying physiological mechanisms, in particular altered central nervous system processing. TMS is a non-invasive technique that can assess corticospinal excitability and the function of GABAergic and glutamatergic pathways, potentially serving as a diagnostic or prognostic tool for PN. This study utilized data from a pilot randomized sham-controlled trial that tested the impact of patient education videos on the effect of transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) in Black and Hispanic/Latino individuals living with PN. TMS measures, including resting motor threshold (RMT), MEP amplitude following unconditioned single-pulse TMS (spTMS) and paired-pulse TMS measures of short interval intracortical inhibition (SICI), and intracortical facilitation (ICF), were assessed twice on separate visits. Test-retest reliability was evaluated, and changes in TMS measures following transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation were computed.Pre-intervention TMS measures showed smaller-than-medium sized differences between CIPN and DN groups. The study found good test-retest reliability for TMS measures, with ICC values between 0.69 and 0.95 for all TMS measures of interest.Overall, TMS measures demonstrated good reliability in this sample of Black and Hispanic/Latino individuals with PN, and these findings provide valuable preliminary data for future studies aimed at establishing the psychometric properties and diagnostic utility of TMS measures in PN.
Keywords: Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, peripheral neuropathy, Diabetic neuropathy, chemotherapy induced peripheral neuropathy, Health Disparities
Received: 26 Dec 2024; Accepted: 12 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wong, McTeague, Gonzalez, Gonzalez, Bolanos, Hosein, Cabral and Fried. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Marlon L Wong, University of Miami, Coral Gables, United States
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