Neuromodulation With rTMS in Dysphagic Patients With Stroke

While the reflex component of swallowing depends on swallowing centres in the brainstem, initiation of swallowing is a voluntary action that involves the integrity of motor areas of the cerebral cortex. Oropharyngeal dysphagia occurs in more than 50% of stroke patients. Aspiration pneumonia occurs in up to 20% of acute stroke patients and is a major cause of mortality after discharge. Oropharyngeal dysphagia is both underestimated and underdiagnosed as a cause of major nutritional and respiratory complications in stroke patients. Recently, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has been used to study the cortical input to swallowing control and has revealed that the topographic representation of esophageal motor function in the human cerebral cortex is bilateral but with consistent interhemispheric asymmetry unrelated to handedness.

In a number of recent studies, poststroke motor and dysphagia performance has been improved after daily treatment sessions with repetitive TMS (rTMS) using an excitatory frequency in patients with hemispheric ischaemic stroke due to occlusion of territories of the middle cerebral artery. Our hypothesis was that rTMS would facilitate dysphagia recovery.