Non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) may enhance motor recovery after neurological injury through the causal induction of plasticity processes. Neurological injury, such as stroke, often results in serious long-term physical disabilities, and despite intensive therapy, a large majority of brain injury survivors fail to regain full motor function. Emerging research suggests that NIBS techniques...

Transcranial static magnetic field stimulation (tSMS) is a novel and inexpensive, non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) technique. Here, we performed non-invasive modulation of intra-epidermal electrical stimulation-evoked potentials (IES-EPs) by applying tSMS or sham stimulation over the primary motor (M1) and somatosensory (S1) cortices in 18 healthy volunteers for 15 min. We recorded EPs aft...

The diagnosis and awareness assessments in chronic disorders of consciousness (DOC) are biased, owing to their reliance on clinical behavioral measures. Indeed, objective tools should be employed with the goal of more precise awareness detection in these patients. To this end, brain stimulation techniques have been developed to demonstrate residual cortical-thalamocortical connectivity patterns...

We conducted a systematic review of studies using non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS: repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)) as a research and clinical tool aimed at improving motor and functional recovery or spasticity in patients following spinal cord injury (SCI) under the assumption that if the residual corticospinal circuit...

Non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) is a method for the study of cognitive function that is quickly gaining popularity. It bypasses the correlative approaches of other imaging techniques, making it possible to establish a causal relationship between cognitive processes and the functioning of specific brain areas. Like lesion studies, NIBS can provide information about where a particular proce...

Most of current knowledge about the mechanisms of multisensory integration of environmental stimuli by the human brain derives from neuroimaging experiments. However, neuroimaging studies do not always provide conclusive evidence about the causal role of a given area for multisensory interactions, since these techniques can mainly derive correlations between brain activations and behavior. Conv...

Neuromodulatory effects of non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) have been extensively studied in chronic pain. A hypothetic mechanism of action would be to prevent or revert the ongoing maladaptive plasticity within the pain matrix. In this review, the authors discuss the mechanisms underlying the development of maladaptive plasticity in patients with chronic pain and the putative mechanisms o...

Several techniques and protocols of non-invasive transcranial brain stimulation (NIBS), including transcranial magnetic and electrical stimuli, have been developed in the past decades. Non-invasive transcranial brain stimulation may modulate cortical excitability outlasting the period of non-invasive transcranial brain stimulation itself from several minutes to more than one hour. Quite a few l...

The new tendency in rehabilitation involves non-invasive tools that, if applied early after stroke, promote neurorecovery. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcranial direct current stimulation may correct the disruption of cortical excitability and effectively contribute to the restoration of movement and speech. The present paper analyses the results of non-invasive brain st...

This special issue of Neuropsychological Rehabilitation aims to present new knowledge about a recent and innovative approach that can possibly ameliorate the outcome of the rehabilitation of cognitive deficits, namely: non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS). The issue includes a series of papers on NIBS and combined rehabilitation studies (reviews and some original contributions), highlighting t...