Abstrakt
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a new, non-invasive method inducing physiologic changes in relatively small areas of human cerebral cortex. TMS is used to induce artificial cortical lesions and thus affects different cognitive functions which can be further explored.
TMS, as applied in cognitive research, is used as single pulse, pair pulse, or rapid-rate pulse (repetitive) TMS. Studies on healthy subjects proved that TMS caused localized disruption to cortical function and thus influenced memory.
This article reviews the main memory experiments with TMS on healthy volunteers and also gives a revision of studies carried out on neuropsychiatricpatients in which memory tests were part of the study protocol. The main interest is to conclude which localization of stimulation and what delay period of stimulus influenced/disrupted the specific types of memory.
This article establishes why TMS seems to be a promising method in neuro-cognitive research of memory.