Brain Stimulation (Sep 2015)

Consensus Paper: Probing Homeostatic Plasticity of Human Cortex With Non-invasive Transcranial Brain Stimulation

  • Anke Karabanov,
  • Ulf Ziemann,
  • Masashi Hamada,
  • Mark S. George,
  • Angelo Quartarone,
  • Joseph Classen,
  • Marcello Massimini,
  • John Rothwell,
  • Hartwig Roman Siebner

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8, no. 5
pp. 993 – 1006

Abstract

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Homeostatic plasticity is thought to stabilize neural activity around a set point within a physiologically reasonable dynamic range. Over the last ten years, a wide range of non-invasive transcranial brain stimulation (NTBS) techniques have been used to probe homeostatic control of cortical plasticity in the intact human brain. Here, we review different NTBS approaches to study homeostatic plasticity on a systems level and relate the findings to both, physiological evidence from in vitro studies and to a theoretical framework of homeostatic function. We highlight differences between homeostatic and other non-homeostatic forms of plasticity and we examine the contribution of sleep in restoring synaptic homeostasis. Finally, we discuss the growing number of studies showing that abnormal homeostatic plasticity may be associated to a range of neuropsychiatric diseases.