Mechanisms of spike inhibition in a cortical network induced by transcranial magnetic stimulation

We propose mechanisms of neural interference induced by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). TMS is widely used as a powerful and unique experimental tool to stimulate the human brain noninvasively, which typically induces inhibitory effect on the cortical functions. However, the fundamental mechanism of TMS-induced suppression is still unclear. In this paper, we computationally demonstrate that TMS induces sustained spike inhibition in a conductance-based network model without the ion channel which is necessary for spike inhibition in an isolated single neuron, suggesting that each individual neuron is not necessarily suppressed by TMS; rather, a collapse of excitatory and inhibitory input balance in the cortical network is crucial for TMS-induced suppression.