Electrical stimulus potentiates motor cortex modulation effects in knee osteoarthritis pain

What is it about?

Neuroplastic changes in nociceptive pathways contribute to severity of knee osteoarthritis pain. A novel strategy to modulate this changes can be the use of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) through the primary motor cortex. We investigated whether tDCS combined with intramuscular electrical stimulation (EIMS) would be more efficacious than sham interventions or a single active intervention in the pain measures. Sixty women with KOA, aged 50–75 years old, randomly received five sessions of one of the four interventions. tDCS was applied over the primary motor cortex (M1), for 30 minutes at 2 mA and the EIMS paraspinal of L1–S2, vast medial, rectus femoris, vast lateral, anterior tibialis muscles, and the pes anserine bursae at 2Hz for 30 minutes. The group with active interventions showed statistical difference improvement in pain, led to better effect in descending pain modulatory system, pain pressure threshold, analgesic use, and disability related to pain.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

This study provides additional evidence regarding additive clinical effects to improve pain measures and descending pain inhibitory controls with tDCS at the primary motor cortex combined with EIMS in KOA. Also, it improved the ability to walk due to reduced pain and reduced analgesic use.