Design of Synchronized Pairing Peripheral Nerve Stimulation and Cortical Polarization to Promote Post-stroke Neuroplasticity for Hand Function Recovery

tACS has the potential to directly induce cortical alterations in the intrinsic neural oscillation at specific frequencies, and the brain could mirror the induced frequencies of the external source of oscillations from the stimulation. Hence, tACS with matching stimulation frequency could be an effective means of enhancing brain oscillatory activity to potentially induce synaptic plasticity for restoration of damaged brain functions. However from the existing studies of applying tACS over the M1 in healthy and diseased brains, there is a wide range of applied stimulation frequencies and varied neuromodulation effects on motor behavior or cortical excitability at different frequencies. In this proposal, subject-specific stimulation frequency and latency will be identified.