Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation for Musculoskeletal Pain in Patients With Parkinson's Disease

Pain is an increasingly recognized non-motor symptom of Parkinson's disease (PD), with significant prevalence and negative impact on the quality of life of patients.

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) of the primary motor cortex（M1）has been proposed to provide definite analgesic effect for pain syndromes. However, very few placebo-controlled studies have been performed specifically to relieve pain in PD. What's more, based on behavioral measures alone, it is impossible to reveal the full network dynamics reflecting the impact of TMS.

Electroencephalography (EEG), with high temporal resolution, records signal that its origin in electrical neural activity, which makes it suitable for measuring TMS-evoked activation. By recording the TMS induced neuronal activation directly from the cortex, TMS-EEG provides information on the excitability, effective connectivity of cortical area, thus exploring cortical network properties in different functional brain states. In addition, the use of EEG offers great prospects as a tool to select the right patients in order to achieve adequate, long-term pain relief.

Besides assessing the efficacy and safety of high-frequency neuronavigated M1-rTMS in PD patients with musculoskeletal pain, the objective of this study additionally aimed to characterize cortical activation behind pain relief. Influence on motor and other non-motor symptoms after rTMS were also investigated.

Pain can appear as a pre-motor symptom, and its intensity could be severe enough to be the dominant non-motor symptom in the course of PD patients.

It estimated the prevalence of painful phenomena in PD to be 30 to 85% (mean 66%), which is significantly greater than the age-matched general population. Painful experiences in PD are highly heterogeneous and complex, which is difficult to describe for patients but also diagnose for neurologists. In addition, this common and disabling symptom receives inadequate analgesic treatment.

The distinction between these pain subtypes is required so that different therapeutic strategies can be established for each type of pain. The King's Parkinson's Pain scale (KPPS) was validated to identify and rate the various types of pain in PD. Fourteen items cover seven main domains, including musculoskeletal pain, chronic body pain (central or visceral), fluctuation-related pain, dyskinetic-dystonic pain, nocturnal pain, oro-facial pain, discolouration/oedema/swelling, and radicular pain. Of these subtypes, musculoskeletal pain is common.

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is a non-invasive brain stimulation technique that may be useful for the treatment of various psychiatric and neurological disorders. The mechanisms underlying rTMS effects remain to be elucidated.

rTMS is postulated to induce neuronal excitability changes in a set of cortical and subcortical areas involved in pain processing and modulation. Interestingly, M1 stimulation had a positive effect on brain structures that are related to the affective-emotional components of pain, such as the insular cortex and cingulate cortex.

The best efficacy for chronic pain has been achieved when primary motor cortex (M1) is stimulated at high frequency (5 to 20 Hz, 80% of the resting motor threshold (RMT)), as in previous rTMS studies in analgesia.

In TMS, time-varying magnetic fields generates electrical currents in the cortex. TMS pulses can either directly or trans-synaptically depolarize neurons, and these neural activities can be recorded through the skull by EEG electrodes placed on the scalp. The combination of TMS with simultaneous EEG can be used to assess excitability, inhibition, plasticity and connectivity across almost all areas of the cortical mantle.

The characterization of potential TMS-EEG predictors and markers could be the theoretical basis for verifying the response to neuromodulation protocols.

In this randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled study, the efficacy and safety of 7 sessions of 20 Hz-rTMS delivered to M1 will be assessed in PD patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain.

A single-pulse TMS-EEG and resting-state EEG directly provide information on the cortical mechanisms before and after rTMS of M1.

Eligibility Criteria:
Inclusion Criteria:

1. Idiopathic PD was diagnosed according to the 2015 Movement Disorder Society (MDS) clinical diagnostic criteria
2. Hoehn and Yahr stages of I to III
3. musculoskeletal pain was detected based on the Ford classification system for pain in PD，chronic pain for ≥3 months
4. stable antiparkinsonian therapy for ≥4 weeks

Exclusion Criteria:

1. Contraindications to rTMS
2. unstable ongoing psychiatric disorder, history of substance abuse (alcohol, drugs)
3. histories of deep brain stimulation surgery
4. Mini-mental State Examination scores ≤24
5. Other pain conditions, such as apparent osteoarthritis, or rheumatoid arthritis depended on laboratory or imaging findings