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Multiple sclerosis fatigue relief by bilateral somatosensory cortex neuromodulation

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Abstract

Multiple sclerosis-related fatigue is highly common and often refractory to medical therapy. Ten fatigued multiple sclerosis patients received two blocks of 5-day anodal bilateral primary somatosensory areas transcranial direct current stimulation in a randomized, double-blind sham-controlled, cross-over study. The real neuromodulation by a personalized electrode, shaped on the MR-derived primary somatosensory cortical strip, reduced fatigue in all patients, by 26 % in average (p = 0.002), which did not change after sham (p = 0.901). Anodal tDCS over bilateral somatosensory areas was able to relief fatigue in mildly disabled MS patients, when the fatigue-related symptoms severely hamper their quality of life. These small-scale study results support the concept that interventions modifying the sensorimotor network activity balances could be a suitable non-pharmacological treatment for multiple sclerosis fatigue.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank NT Marina Di Giorgio for her technical contributions. This work was supported by: (1) FISM-Fondazione Italiana Sclerosi Multipla–Cod.2011/R/32 [FaReMuSDiCDiT], (2) Ministry of Health Cod. GR-2008-1138642 [ProSIA] and 3) MIUR Prot. 2010SH7H3F ‘Functional connectivity and neuroplasticity in physiological and pathological aging [ConnAge]’.

Conflicts of interest

The authors have no conflicts of interest or financial ties to disclose.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Electrophysiology for Translational neuroScience (LET’S)-ISTC-CNR, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Fatebenefratelli Hospital, Isola Tiberina, 00186, Rome, Italy

    Franca Tecchio, Andrea Cancelli, Carlo Cottone & Giancarlo Zito

  2. Department of Neuroimaging, IRCCS San Raffaele Pisana, Rome, Italy

    Franca Tecchio, Patrizio Pasqualetti & Paolo Maria Rossini

  3. Institute of Neurology, Dept. of Geriatrics, Neurosciences & Orthopaedics, Catholic University of Sacred Heart, Rome, Italy

    Andrea Cancelli & Paolo Maria Rossini

  4. Department of Neuroscience and Imaging, G. d’Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara, Chieti, Italy

    Carlo Cottone

  5. Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Fatebenefratelli Hospital, Rome, Italy

    Giancarlo Zito, Anna Ghazaryan & Maria Maddalena Filippi

  6. Medical Statistics and Information Technology, AFaR Division, Fatebenefratelli Foundation for Health Research and Education, Rome, Italy

    Patrizio Pasqualetti

Authors
  1. Franca Tecchio
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  2. Andrea Cancelli
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  3. Carlo Cottone
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  4. Giancarlo Zito
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  5. Patrizio Pasqualetti
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  6. Anna Ghazaryan
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  7. Paolo Maria Rossini
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  8. Maria Maddalena Filippi
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Correspondence to Franca Tecchio.

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Tecchio, F., Cancelli, A., Cottone, C. et al. Multiple sclerosis fatigue relief by bilateral somatosensory cortex neuromodulation. J Neurol 261, 1552–1558 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-014-7377-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-014-7377-9

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