Systematic review highlights the relationship between ageing and motor cortical representations assessed by TMS, suggesting inconclusive results.
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) is a non-invasive tool used to study sensorimotor cortical excitability, structure, and function of the human brain. Using TMS to map the motor cortex amongst different age groups may provide insight into a potential relationship between physiological changes in the motor cortex and muscle function with age. This systematic review presents an analysis of the existing literature on age-related differences in motor cortical representations of the human brain examined by TMS. Two independent reviewers conducted a literature review using PubMed. They extracted eligible articles that reported the usage of TMS to map the muscle cortex corresponding to specific muscles according to preestablished inclusion and exclusion criteria. The search criteria yielded a total of 667 citations, from which five cross-sectional papers were included in the analysis. Four of these papers demonstrated either no change or inconclusive results regarding the impact of age on motor cortical map size as assessed by TMS. The current literature does not suggest a relationship between age and motor cortical map size within the human motor cortex as assessed by TMS. However, further research is necessary to draw a definitive conclusion. Additional investigation is required to determine if the age-related decrease in muscle function is connected to changes in motor cortical map size. A deeper understanding of alterations in motor map sizes as a function of age may provide valuable insights into various age-related motor deficits and neurodegenerative conditions.
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Patel et al. (2025) studied this question.
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