Objective

Connectivity between the cerebellum and primary motor cortex (M1) can be assessed by using transcranial magnetic stimulation to measure cerebellar brain inhibition (CBI). The aim of the present study was to determine the intra- and inter-day measurment error and relative reliability of CBI. The former informs the degree to which repeated measurements vary, whereas the latter informs how well the measure can distinguish individuals from one another within a sample.

Methods

We obtained CBI data from 83 healthy young participants (n = 55 retrospective). Intra-day measurements were separated by ~ 30 min. Inter-day measurmenets were separated by a minimum of 24 h.

Results

We show that CBI has low measurement error (~15%) within and between sessions. Using the measurment error, we demonstrate that change estimates which exceed measurment noise are large at an individual level, but can be detected with modest sample sizes. Finally, we demonstrate that the CBI measurement has fair to good relative reliability in healthy individuals, which may be deflated by low sample heterogeneity.

Conclusions

CBI has low measurement error supporting its use for tracking intra- and inter-day changes in cerebellar-M1 connectivity.

Significance

Our findings provide clear reliability guidelines for future studies assessing modulation of cerebellar-M1 connectivity with intervention or disease progression.

中文翻译：

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小脑抑制的可靠性

客观的

小脑和初级运动皮层 (M1) 之间的连通性可以通过使用经颅磁刺激来测量小脑脑抑制 (CBI) 来评估。本研究的目的是确定 CBI 的日内和日间测量误差和相对可靠性。前者说明重复测量的变化程度，而后者说明测量在样本中区分个体的程度。

方法

我们从 83 名健康的年轻参与者（n = 55 回顾性）那里获得了 CBI 数据。日内测量值相隔约 30 分钟。日间测量间隔最少 24 小时。

结果

我们表明 CBI 在会话内和会话之间具有低测量误差（~15%）。使用测量误差，我们证明超过测量噪声的变化估计在个体水平上很大，但可以用适度的样本量检测到。最后，我们证明了 CBI 测量在健康个体中具有相当到良好的相对可靠性，这可能会因低样本异质性而减弱。

结论

CBI 具有低测量误差，支持其用于跟踪小脑-M1 连接的日内和日间变化。

意义

我们的研究结果为未来评估干预或疾病进展对小脑-M1 连接的调节的研究提供了明确的可靠性指南。