Hierarchical neurobiological changes in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and subgenual anterior cingulate connectivity induced by theta-burst stimulation

Recent studies show that left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) stimulation induces acute and persistent changes in the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sgACC), and the degree of sgACC modulation predicts treatment response in patients. To understand how theta-burst stimulation (TBS) over the left DLPFC influences sgACC microcircuitry, we applied spectral dynamic causal modeling (DCM) with a conductance-based canonical microcircuit model (CMM-NMDA) to resting-state EEG data acquired at 2, 15, and 30 minutes following continuous TBS (cTBS), intermittent TBS (iTBS), and Sham stimulation. Using a multilevel parametric empirical Bayes framework, we observed that cTBS induce wider network effect 2 min after stimulation while iTBS made more lasting changes up to 30 min following stimulation. Unlike sham, both TBS protocols led to a transient reduction in NMDA-dependent effective connectivity from right DLPFC to left sgACC. Notably, TBS caused sustained inhibition within left sgACC microcircuits, characterized by increased self-inhibition of spiny-satellite cells. Together, these findings demonstrate that spectral DCM can resolve the dynamic, hierarchical neuromodulatory effects of TBS in healthy brains and highlight a potential mechanism underlying the antidepressant action of left DLPFC TBS.