Cortical dynamics of motivational salience: TMS-EEG and ERP integration in a food cue paradigm

These findings demonstrate that TMS-EEG can resolve temporally distinct neural signatures of excitatory and inhibitory processing in response to salient cues. The observed TEP patterns, particularly in components associated with GABAergic inhibition (N40, N100), reveal individual variability in prefrontal control of appetitive stimuli. By bridging ERP and TMS-EEG approaches, this study provides mechanistic insight into the temporal dynamics of prefrontal regulation under motivational challenge and identifies potential neurophysiological markers for targeted neuromodulation of cue reactivity in health and disorder.