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Thesis Project Form

Title (tentative): Analysis of cortical excitability and connectivity in healthy and Parkinson’s subjects: a TMS-EEG study

Thesis advisor(s): Fato Marco Massimo, Andrea Canessa E-mail:
Address: Via All'Opera Pia, 13 - 16145 Genova Phone: (+39) 010 33 52789
Description

Motivation and application domain
Most neurological and psychiatric condition share, as a common substrate, the alteration of cortical excitability and connectivity. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) combined with simultaneous high-density electroencephalography (hd-EEG) represents a straightforward way to gauge, directly and non – invasively, cortical excitability and connectivity in humans in virtually any portion of the human thalamocortical system.

General objectives and main activities
The aim of the thesis is to perform a TMS-EEG study on a population of healthy subjects and a population of patients affected by Parkinsons’s disease. The study will target different cortical areas (e.g., presupplementary and supplementary motor cortex, motor cortex, parietal cortex) with stimulation protocols aiming at probing different neural circuits. The definition of these protocols, together with the stimulation setup, will be part of the thesis work too. In fact, very interesting would be to perform not only passive stimulation tasks, but also stimulations synchronized with simple motor tasks. This paves the way to technological issues that will have to be faced during the thesis.

Training Objectives (technical/analytical tools, experimental methodologies)
The candidate will learn to manage, to process and to analyse neurophysiological data (hdEEG signals and MRI images), to perform non parametric statistical analysis and to face source modelling problem. The candidate will acquire the technical competences to use a new technological device such as the TMS-EEG, the clinical knowledges at the base of the definition of new stimulation protocols and patients evaluation.

Place(s) where the thesis work will be carried out: DIBRIS, University of Genova Department of Neurology, University Hospital and Julius-Maximilian-University, Wuerzburg, Germany

Additional information

Maximum number of students: 1