Overview

Transcranial stimulation (tDCS; rTMS and others) is a powerful and unique tool that can modulate brain activity online during stimulation and offline after stimulation.
It develops more and more towards a clinical tool, best advanced at present for therapy of major depression. While the treatment results are very convincing for this disease many other neurological and psychiatric study results are conflicting. Replicability of study results is an issue not only in transcranial brain stimulation but in general in science including even areas such as physics or chemistry. The extent to which neurophysiological or clinical effects following transcranial stimulation vary depends on many variables such as e.g. stimulation parameters (duration and intensity, number of sessions), anatomical and physiological factors (e.g. individual skull thickness, heterogeneity in cortical folding, varying (with age) cerebrospinal fluid thickness, variation in brain state), and many others. Individual neuroimaging, computational modelling and using neuronavigation during stimulation may reduce variability to some extent by more precise quantification of electrode montages and electric or magnetic fields intensities.
Thus, the scientific objectives of this workshop are in first line to bring together experts from different areas of transcranial stimulation in order to identify better the sources and key components of variability. There is a necessity to differentiate aspects such as Trial-to-Trial variability of electrophysiological variables (first line: MEP amplitudes) vs. variability of clinical endpoints. Finally, we will come up with recommendations, in a form of a position paper, for reducing variability in future studies. Since the field of transcranial stimulation is rapidly evolving, new techniques, devices, and applications may contribute to this goal. We will implement therefore also new developments and hereby hopefully will provide a platform for researchers to present their latest results and engage in discussions on the current state-of-the-art and future directions of the field, very much focused on issues around reducing variability.
The workshop will focus on variability of biomarkers such as MEPs, EEG and MRI data and less on clinical data in the present context.

Program

Friday, October 6, 2023

5:30 - 7:30 AM: Come together

Differential variability issues (e.g. trial to trial versus biomarker to clinical) in rTMS, U. Ziemann
tDCS, M. Nitsche
tACS, / tRNS A. Antal
Neurology, M. Hallett
Psychiatry, S. Lisanby

Saturday, October 6, 2023 (Plenary Sessions)

08:30 AM: W Paulus - Welcome
08:35 AM: V. Moliadze - Single pulse variability in non-primate stimulation studies
08:55 AM: N. Focke - Single pulse variability in invasive human stimulation studies
09:15 AM: TBD
09:35 AM: J. Rothwell - TMS - MEP variability
09:55 AM: V Di Lazzaro - Double pulse (SICI, SICF, LICI) and silent period
10:10 AM: Discussion
10:30 - 11:00 AM: Coffee Break
11:00 AM: R. Chen rTMS
11:20 AM: G. Koch Theta burst
11:40 AM: Y. Ugawa Quadripulse
12:00 PM: A. Suppa Combinations of brain stimulation methods
12:20 PM: S. Goetz Technical approaches to reduce MEP variability
12:40 PM: Discussion
12:55 - 2:00 PM: Lunch
2:00 PM: A. Thielscher - How individual anatomy impacts the stimulation effects
2:15 PM: A. Opitz - Measurement of variability factors in monkey and human brain
2:30 PM: P. Rossini - EEG characteristics and TMS variability
2:45 PM: C. Grefkes - Herman Connectome - MRI
2:00 PM: T.O. Bergmann - TMS-MRI (fMRI)
2:15 PM: TBD
3:30 PM: Discussion
4:15 PM: A. Peterchev - Electric field pulse characteristics
4:30 PM: H. Tankisi - Cortical threshold tracking
4:45 PM: D. Corp - Large-scale analysis of interindividual variability in single
and paired-pulse TMS data
5:00 PM: S. Goerigk - Statistics in transcranial stimulation
5:15 PM: T. Weyh - New devices for magnetic stimulation
5:30 PM: M. Bikson - How biomarkers reduce variability in the past and tentatively in the future by categorizing approaches
5:45 PM: Discussion

Sunday, October 7, 2023 (Plenary Sessions)

08:30 AM: S. Filipović - Variability in memory studies
08:45 AM: C. Miniussi - Variability in cognition
09:00 AM: L. Cattaneo - Variability induced by state dependency in cognition
09:15 AM: W. Paulus - Variability induced by state dependency in MEP recordings
09:30 AM: M. Wilson - Modelling intracellular calcium
09:45 AM: Discussion
10:45 AM: TBD
11:00 AM: TBD
11:15 AM: M. Schecklmann - Tinnitus
11:30 AM: N. Neef - Stuttering
11:45 AM: M. Wilke - Parkinson
12:00 PM: F. Padberg - How to minimize rTMS/deepTMS variability in depression
12:15 PM: A. Hasan - Multimodal individualization improves success rates of rTMS in schizophrenia
12:30 PM: A. Brunoni - tDCS in depression: how to reduce sources of variability 12:45 Discussion
1 - 2 PM: Lunch
2:00 PM: J. Bjekic - Individualization of tACS frequencies
2:15 PM: S. Bestmann - Practical and conceptual challenges for individualizing stimulation
2:30 PM: C. Stagg - Individualization by Neuroimaging
2:45 PM: H.R. Siebner - The multiple facets of response variability – implications for personalization of brain stimulation
3:00 PM: MF. Kuo - Nicotine and caffeine
3:15 PM: TBD
5:30 PM: Closing Event