Brain Stimulation in Children Born Preterm-Promises and Pitfalls

It is now clear that most children born preterm will experience motor, cognitive, and/or behavioral difficulties, ranging from very subtle to frank disability. For the vast majority, this dysfunction appears to have its origins in microstructural abnormalities, principally of white matter, that affects functional neural connectivity within and between brain regions. Non-invasive brain stimulation techniques such as transcranial magnetic stimulation, offer the potential not only to probe the physiology underlying specific aspects of neurodevelopmental dysfunction in preterm children, in real time, they may also have therapeutic potential by induction of beneficial neuroplastic change. This chapter summarizes the current literature on the use of transcranial magnetic stimulation in preterm pediatric populations, identifies some of the pitfalls and limitations, and highlights the promise these techniques might hold for the future.