Investigating the neurobiology of schizophrenia and other major psychiatric disorders with Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

Characterizing the neurobiology of schizophrenia and other major psychiatric disorders is one of the main challenges of the current research in psychiatry. The availability of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) allows to directly probe virtually any cortical areas, thus providing a unique way to assess the neurophysiological properties of cortical neurons. This article presents a review of studies employing TMS in combination with Motor Evoked Potentials (TMS/MEPs) and high density Electroencephalogram (TMS/hd-EEG) in schizophrenia and other major psychiatric disorders. Studies were identified by conducting a PubMed search using the following search item: “transcranial magnetic stimulation and (Schizophrenia or OCD or MDD or ADHD)”. Studies that utilized TMS/MEP and/or TMS/hd-EEG measures to characterize cortical excitability, inhibition, oscillatory activity, and/or connectivity in psychiatric patients were selected. Across disorders, patients displayed a pattern of reduced cortical inhibition, and to a lesser extent increased excitability, in the motor cortex, which was most consistently established in Schizophrenia. Furthermore, psychiatric patients showed abnormalities in a number of TMS-evoked EEG oscillations, which was most prominent in the prefrontal cortex of Schizophrenia relative to healthy comparison subjects. Overall, results from this review point to significant impairments in cortical excitability, inhibition, and oscillatory activity, especially in frontal areas, in several major psychiatric disorders. Building on these findings, future studies employing TMS-based experimental paradigms may help elucidating the neurobiology of these psychiatric disorders, and may assess the contribution of TMS-related measures in monitoring and possibly maximizing the effectiveness of treatment interventions in psychiatric populations.