Abstract.
Anatomical and behavioural work on primates has shown bilateral innervation of axial and proximal limb muscles, and contralateral control of distal limb muscles. The following study examined if a clear boundary exists between the distal and proximal upper limb muscles that are controlled contralaterally or bilaterally. The right motor cortical area representing the upper limb was stimulated, while surface EMG was recorded bilaterally from various upper limb muscles during rest and phasic voluntary contractions. Peak-to-peak amplitude of motor evoked potential (MEP) was measured for each muscle on both sides. The ratio R = (ipsilateral MEP: contralateral MEP) was calculated for seven pairs of muscles. For each of the seven pairs, R was less than 1.0, implying that for each muscle and subject, the contralateral control is stronger. The boundary where R changed from almost zero to a clearly measurable magnitude depended on the subject. Ipsilateral MEPs from trapezius and pectoralis could be recorded with a small background contraction from almost all subjects; on the other hand, in deltoid and biceps brachii, ipsilateral MEPs were observed only with bimanual phasic contractions. The forearm and hand muscles, in general, did not show any ipsilateral MEPs. Major differences between subjects lay in the presence or the absence of ipsilateral MEPs in biceps brachii and deltoid, without defining a sharp boundary between proximal and distal muscles.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alagona G, Delvaux V, Gérard P, De Pasqua V, Pennisi G, Delwaide PJ, Nicoletti F, Maertens de Noordhout A (2001) Ipsilateral motor responses to focal transcranial magnetic stimulation in healthy subjects and acute-stroke patients. Stroke 32:1304–1309
Brinkman J, Kuypers HGJM (1973) Cerebral control of contralateral and ipsilateral arm, hand and finger movements in the split-brain rhesus monkey. Brain 96:653–674
Cardoso de Oliveira S, Gribova A, Donchin O, Bergman H, Vaadia E (2001) Neural interactions between motor cortical hemispheres during bimanual and unimanual arm movements. Eur J Neurosci 14:1881–1896
Carr LJ, Harrison LM, Stephens JA (1994) Evidence for the bilateral innervation of certain homologous motoneurone pools in man. J Physiol 475:217–227
Diedrichsen J, Hazeltine E, Nurss EK, Ivry RB (2003) The role of the corpus callosum in the coupling of bimanual isometric force pulses. J Neurophysiol 90:2409–2418
Donchin O, Cardosa de Oliveira S, Vaadia E (1999) Who tells one hand what the other is doing: The neurophysiology of bimanual movements. Neuron 23:15–18
Ferbert A, Priori A, Rothwell JC, Day BL, Colebatch JG, Marsden CD (1992) Interhemispheric inhibition of the human motor cortex. J Physiol 453:525–546
Fisher CM (1992) Concerning the mechanism of recovery in stroke hemiplegia. Can J Neurol Sci 19:57–63
Jacobson LS, Servos P, Goodale MA, Lassonde M (1994) Control of proximal and distal components of prehension in callosal agenesis. Brain 117:1107–1113
Kazennikov O, Wicki U, Corboz M, Hyland B, Palmeri A, Rouiller EM, Wiesendanger M (1994) Temporal structure of a bimanual goal-directed movement sequence in monkeys. Eur J Neurosci 6:203–210
Keel JC, Smith MJ, Wassermann EM (2001) A safety screening questionnaire for transcranial magnetic stimulation. Clin Neurophysiol 112:720
Khedr EM, Trakhan MN (2001) Localization of diaphragm motor cortical representation and determination of corticodiaphragmatic latencies by using magnetic stimulation in normal adult human subjects. Eur J Appl Physiol 85:560–566
Kuypers HGJM (1985) The anatomical and functional organization of the motor system. In: Swash M, Kennard C (eds) Scientific basis of clinical neurology. Churchill Livingstone, London, pp 3–18
Maertens de Noordhout A, Rapisarda G, Bogacz D, Gerard P, De Pasqua V, Pennisi G, Delwaide PJ (1999) Corticomotoneuronal synaptic connections in normal man: an electrophysiological study. Brain 122:1327–1340
Marsden JF, Farmer SF, Halliday DM, Rosenberg JR, Brown P (1999) The unilateral and bilateral control of motor unit pairs in the first dorsal interosseous and paraspinal muscles in man. J Physiol 521:553–564
Muellbacher W, Artner C, Mamoli B (1999) The role of the intact hemisphere in recovery of midline muscles after recent monohemispheric stroke. J Neurol 246:250–256
Müller K, Kass-Iliyya F, Reitz M (1997) Ontogeny of ipsilateral corticospinal projections: A developmental study with transcranial magnetic stimulation. Ann Neurol 42:705–711
Palmer E, Ashby P (1992) Corticospinal projections to upper limb motoneurones in humans. J Physiol 448:397–412
Rokini U, Steinberg O, Vaadia E, Sompolinsky H (2003) Cortical representation of bimanual movements. J Neurosci 23:11577–11586
Sanes JN, Donoghue JP (2000) Plasticity and primary motor cortex. Annu Rev Neurosci 23:393–415
Serrien DJ, Brown P (2002) The functional role of interhemispheric synchronization in the control of bimanual timing tasks. Exp Brain Res 147:268–272
Sohn YH, Jung HY, Kaelin-Lang A, Hallett M (2003) Excitability of the ipsilateral motor cortex during phasic voluntary hand movement. Exp Brain Res 148:176–185
Staudt M, Grodd W, Gerloff C, Erb M, Stitz J, Krägeloh-Mann I (2002) Two types of ipsilateral reorganization in congenital hemiparesis. A TMS and fMRI study. Brain 125:2222–2237
Tanji J, Okano K, Sato KC (1988) Neuronal activity in cortical motor areas related to ipsilateral, contralateral, and bilateral digit movements of the monkey. J Neurophysiol 60:325–343
Turton A, Wroe S, Trepte N, Fraser C, Lemon RN (1996) Contralateral and ipsilateral EMG responses to transcranial magnetic stimulation during recovery of arm and hand function after stroke. EEG Clin Neurophysiol 101:316–328
Wasserman EM, Fuhr P, Cohen LG, Hallett M (1991) Effects of transcranial magnetic stimulation on ipsilateral muscles. Neurology 41:1795–1799
Wasserman EM, Pascual-Leone A, Hallett M (1994) Cortical motor representation of the ipsilateral hand and arm. Exp Brain Res 100:121–132
Wiesendanger M, Rouiller EM, Kazennikov O, Perrig S (1996) Is the supplementary motor area a bilaterally organized system? Adv Neurol 70:85–93
Ziemann, Ishii K, Borgheresi A, Yaseen Z, Battaglia F, Hallett M, Cincotta M, Wasserman EM (1999) Dissociation of the pathways mediating ipsilateral and contralateral motor-evoked potentials in human hand and arm muscles. J Physiol 518:895–906
Acknowledgements.
The authors would like to thank Dr. Blair Calancie for help with some of these experiments, which were conducted in his laboratory. This work was supported by the Natural Science and Engineering Council of Canada.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Bawa, P., Hamm, J.D., Dhillon, P. et al. Bilateral responses of upper limb muscles to transcranial magnetic stimulation in human subjects. Exp Brain Res 158, 385–390 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-004-2031-x
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-004-2031-x