The Effect of Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation on the Cognition in People With Parkinson's Disease

Parkinson's disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease. The cardinal symptoms of PD are tremor, rigidity, bradykinesia and postural instability. Cognitive impairment and dementia are also one of the key features of the non-motor symptoms of PD. At present, the mainstream treatment of PD-dementia is the dopaminergic rivastigmine. Repetitive transcortical magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is a novel non-invasive intervention. Through the magnetic stimulation, brain neurons could be activated by the electrical current. The application of rTMS had been approved by US FDA for the treatment of depression. The possible effect of rTMS may result from the stimulation-related neuronal plasticity. Regarding PD, rTMS also had been found to had some effect on different motor symptoms and cognition. The present study would like to test the accumulative effect of rTMS on cognition of PD. All the study subjects will receive rTMS under intermittent theta burst stimulation (iTBS) mode at supplementary motor area (SMA). Cognitive bahevorial tests and other motor/depression assessments will be assessed before and after the intervention.