A randomized controlled study on intermittent theta pulse stimulation for improving cognitive impairment after stroke
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Objective This study evaluates the efficacy and underlying mechanisms of intermittent theta-burst stimulation (iTBS) in improving cognitive function and quality of life in post-stroke patients. Methods A total of 80 subacute stroke patients with cognitive deficits were randomly assigned to a control group (n = 40) receiving conventional treatment plus sham stimulation and an experimental group (n = 40) receiving conventional treatment plus iTBS over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex for 4 weeks. Results Baseline characteristics were comparable between groups. After 3 months, the experimental group demonstrated significantly greater improvements than the control group in scores for the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE; adjusted mean: 25.35 vs. 20.44, P < 0.001), Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA; 26.49 vs. 24.57, P = 0.002), and Stroke-Specific Quality of Life (SS-QOL; 158.45 vs. 137.31, P < 0.001), and showed greater reduction in completion time for the Trail Making Test (TMT). Biochemically, the iTBS group exhibited significantly increased serum Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) and reduced levels of Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha (TNF-α) and Interleukin-6 (IL-6) compared to the control group (all P < 0.001). Changes in BDNF levels correlated positively with improvements in MMSE scores (r = 0.58, P < 0.001). Conclusion iTBS is a safe and effective intervention that enhances cognitive recovery and quality of life in post-stroke patients. These benefits are associated with modulation of neuroplasticity and inflammatory markers, suggesting that iTBS may promote recovery by upregulating BDNF and attenuating neuroinflammation. Further research is needed to confirm these mechanisms.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.004 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.007 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".