Peer Review History
Original SubmissionOctober 19, 2021 |
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PONE-D-21-33464Altered Corticospinal Excitability of Scapular Muscles in Individuals with Shoulder Impingement SyndromePLOS ONE Dear Dr. Shih, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Jan 03 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:
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Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Currently, your Funding Statement reads as follows: "This work was funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan (YF) [grant numbers MOST 106-2410-H-010-012-MY2]." Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. 3. PLOS requires an ORCID iD for the corresponding author in Editorial Manager on papers submitted after December 6th, 2016. Please ensure that you have an ORCID iD and that it is validated in Editorial Manager. To do this, go to ‘Update my Information’ (in the upper left-hand corner of the main menu), and click on the Fetch/Validate link next to the ORCID field. This will take you to the ORCID site and allow you to create a new iD or authenticate a pre-existing iD in Editorial Manager. Please see the following video for instructions on linking an ORCID iD to your Editorial Manager account: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xcclfuvtxQ Additional Editor Comments: As you will see, both reviewers have raised substantial concerns about the manuscript. If you believe that you can address these concerns, I would recommend revising. Please address all concerns of both reviewers. In particular you will need to provide additional data on the following: 1) the fact that EMG was not controlled during the scapular movements and all the differences between groups could come from the absence of EMG control. Higher EMG activity in one group could have led to in differences in AMT or CoG. You need to provide EMG activity of the three muscles during TMS testing. 2)Testing hotspot, AMT and mapping of three different muscles would certainly take 3-4 hours. Did participants report pain and fatigue during testing? 3) The location of EMG electrodes are not specified. Considering that the lower trapezius and serratus anterior are difficult to locate and test using EMG, more details are need in the methods on how the electrodes were placed and how authors did confirm positioning over these muscles. Also, a lot of cross-talk could come from adjacent muscles. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: Partly ********** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No ********** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: PONE-D-21-33464: Altered Corticospinal Excitability of Scapular Muscles in Individuals with Shoulder Impingement Syndrome General comments: Yi-Fen Shih et al. compared TMS variables of three scapular muscles (serratus anterio, superior and inferior trapezius) in participants with and without impingement syndrome. They observed significant differences between multiple variables (e.g. AMT, CoGy). I have several methodological concerns that could make the results un-interpretable. • TMS was tested during shoulder scaption and EMG was not controlled during this movement. All the differences between groups could come from the absence of EMG control. Indeed, higher EMG activity in one group could result in differences in AMT or CoG. Authors need at least to provide EMG activity of the three muscles during TMS testing. • The TMS session was really ambitious. Testing hostpot, AMT and mapping of three different muscles would certainly take 3-4 hours. Did participants report pain and fatigue during testing? • The location of MEG electrodes are not specified. Considering that the lower trapezius and serratus anterior are difficult to locate and test using EMG, more details are need in the methods on how the electrodes were placed and how authors did confirm positioning over these muscles. Also, a lot of cross-talks could come from adjacent muscles. • Data are not all available in a public repository. Only means and a measure of dispersion are available in the Figures. Specific comments: Introduction - Ln 40-41: I don’t think that we can assure that scapular dyskinesis is the leading factor of SIS. I would be more appropriate to indicate that this is one of the factor. - Ln 53: Typo with reference (7) - Ln 55: I don’t think we can use the term muscle kinetics that refer more to the biochemistry of muscle contraction rather than muscle activation. I think motor control may be a more appropriate term. Also the sentence is a bit trivial, it is clear that scapular dyskinesis suggest alteration of scapular motor patterns. Dyskinesis means modification of movement. - Ln 63: Typo: recently should be recent - Ln 64-66: Authors should use the term lower rather than decrease since it is cross-sectional studies. Decrease/increase infers that pain induced this effect, but we cannot conclude this from cross-sectional studies. Other studies also showed lower in intracortical inhibition level of trunk muscles in chronic low back pain compared to pain-free controls 1,2. - Ln 77: What do authors mean by corticospinal inhibition? Do they mean intracortical inhibition? Typo: motor representation rather than presentation. Material and methods - Ln 78: How the effect size was calculated? - Ln 95-98: It is important to provide more details about the exact locations of the EMG electrodes for each muscle tested. How do authors ensure that the EMG electrodes recorded muscle activity from the muscles targeted? Specifically, considering that the trapezius inferior and serratus anterior may be difficult to locate and palpate, what techniques did authors use to ensure proprer electrode placement? - Ln 109: Why using a 90-degree scaption during TMS testing? - Ln 117: type: grid rather than grip - Ln 113-121: o Did authors tested motor threshold before finding the hotspot? The order in which this is presented let is supposed this. If so, this is problematic. o It seems like hostpsot and AMT of each muscle was measured independanlty. This takes usually a lot of time. Can authors provide how long it took to measure hotspot and AMT of each individual muscle? - Ln 127-129: Why did only the 5 fist MEP amplitude were averaged? This is unconventional.Ln 135 - Please use references when potential mechanisms for TMS variables are stated (e.g. 3). - Ln 139-141: Why a 11 µV MEP amplitude is used as cut-off? Why not using the same cut-off as for the AMT? - The total duration of the session should be mentioned. This is a really long and ambitous session with three muscles tested for hotspot, AMT and mapping. How did the participants cope with such a long session? Did they report pain or fatigue? If so, how fatigue and pain may affect the results? Results: - It is critical to control the level of EMG that was present during TMS. Differences between groups may be driven by an increase EMG activity during the scaption movement. For exmaple, for mapping, a previous study showed that CoG was different at rest vs. in activity4. Was there differences in EMG activity for the three muscles during TMS?
- 1 Massé-Alarie, H., Beaulieu, L. D., Preuss, R. & Schneider, C. Corticomotor control of lumbar multifidus muscles is impaired in chronic low back pain: concurrent evidence from ultrasound imaging and double-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation. Exp Brain Res 234, 1033-1045, doi:10.1007/s00221-015-4528-x (2016). - 2 Massé-Alarie, H., Flamand, V. H., Moffet, H. & Schneider, C. Corticomotor control of deep abdominal muscles in chronic low back pain and anticipatory postural adjustments. Exp Brain Res 218, 99-109, doi:10.1007/s00221-012-3008-9 (2012). - 3 Ziemann, U. et al. TMS and drugs revisited 2014. Clin Neurophysiol, doi:10.1016/j.clinph.2014.08.028 (2014). - 4 Masse-Alarie, H., Bergin, M. J. G., Schneider, C., Schabrun, S. & Hodges, P. W. "Discrete peaks" of excitability and map overlap reveal task-specific organization of primary motor cortex for control of human forearm muscles. Hum Brain Mapp 38, 6118-6132, doi:10.1002/hbm.23816 (2017). - Reviewer #2: In current manuscript authors have assess and compare the corticospinal excitability, corticospinal inhibition and motor presentation of the upper and lower trapezius, and the serratus anterior in participants with and without SIS.In general manuscript is written well but for better presentation of the manuscript i would like authors to comment so following points Abstract: Page 3, Ln 23:Mention sampling technique used for recruitment of participants Page 3, Ln 28: A sentence on how the data was analyzed will be useful Page 3, Ln 29-33: Provide p-values for the results Page 3, Ln 35: Shift “in” motor presentation Introduction: Page 5, Ln 64: The term “individuals with musculoskeletal pain” is very broad. Please be more specific about the population in which the changes were reported. Were these studies done on people with shoulder pain or any musculoskeletal pain at any site? Page 5, Ln 64: Unclear what “changes in the center of gravity of a cortical map” means. Methods: Page 6, Ln 77: Please provide details on participant recruitment i.e., how and from where were the participants recruited for the study? Page 6, Ln 78: Please provide more details about the inclusion criteria of participants. What was the age group that was targeted? The criteria about age group appears for the first time in the second last paragraph of the discussion section. This is needs to be mentioned in the methods section. Was pain intensity, pain duration, cause of impingement: traumatic or non-traumatic and bilateral or unilateral involvement used to screen eligible participants? Page 6,Ln 80-83:Please provide references for the cluster of tests used for the inclusion of patients. Page 6, Ln 82: Add “examined” before “by a licensed…” and replace “physical therapy” with “physical therapist”. Page 8, Ln 108, 109: Was the arm held in scaption decided based on side affected or contralateral to testing hemisphere? Page 10, Ln 150: Please provide the justification for using a non-parametric Mann-Whitney U test. Please provide information on whether the data was normally distributed. Results: Page 11 Ln 155: Please change the tense to past tense in Ln 155 Table 1 shows that participants pain intensity was collected using VAS scale, but this has not been mentioned in the methods section. Please provide more details about participant characteristics such as side of affected shoulder, pain duration (acute or chronic condition), does the VAS pain rating represent pain at rest or pain during movement, pain on the day of testing or average pain in past week/month. Discussion: Page 12 Line 170-172: Recheck sentence structure and rephrase. Include which side corticospinal excitability is increased or decreased i.e., ipsi- or contralateral. Please include the clinical implication of the findings in the first paragraph of the discussion section. Page 15, 234: Replace “studies” with “study” Page 17, Line 254-269: Please include some suggestions on how the limitation listed for the current study can be improved in future research. In table two on line 387 please mention the test for the P valuse as done in line 380 for table 1. Please improve the figure 2 ,3A and 3B quality as currently they arr blurry. ********** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: Yes: Hugo Massé-Alarie Reviewer #2: No [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. |
Revision 1 |
PONE-D-21-33464R1Altered Corticospinal Excitability of Scapular Muscles in Individuals with Shoulder Impingement SyndromePLOS ONE Dear Dr. Shih, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Mar 21 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:
If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Bernadette Ann Murphy, PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments: Please ensure that you address Reviewer 1's comments in this revision. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #1: (No Response) Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed ********** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: (No Response) Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: PONE-D-21-33464: Altered Corticospinal Excitability of Scapular Muscles in Individuals with Shoulder Impingement Syndrome General comments: I thank authors for considering my comments. However, there are some authors’ responses for which I am not convinced and other elements I would like them to address. - About EMG control, in 2014-2015, it was well known that EMG background amplitude (representing the net motoneuronal excitability) was critical to control in TMS research considering the MEP amplitude represent the excitability at both cortical and spinal levels. Authors may control for EMG by measuring pre-stimulus EMG background to determine if it was similar between groups for each muscle tested. For example, if participants of the SIS group recruit more the lower trapezius during the task, it may explain the longer duration of the CSP or the difference in AMT. Further analyses are required to ensure that the results are not due to different patterns of recruitment in the different groups. - I encourage authors to review the literature and report TMS studies comparing patients with and without musculoskeletal pain for cortical and corticospinal control. For example, differences in AMT 1 and in intracortical inhibition 2. Considering that these variables were not reported in TMS studies of shoulder muscles, it may help for the discussion of the results. - About the use of the 5 highest MEP out of 10, why did the authors used these methods? Could they use references and discuss how it could impact on the results? - Ln. 64-67: In this sentence, it should be clear that the difference was with the non-painful side, and not with a control group. - About sample size calculation: what was the alpha and beta levels used? - About the position of the electrodes, authors should provide a reference for these electrode sites. - About the justification of the scaption position, please refer to a study for the EMG level stated (10-15% MVC). - Ln 202-203: Please refer to systematic reviews and meta-analysis (e.g. 3,4) and it is important to be cautious to assume that chronic pain has the same effect as acute pain. A systematic review of chronic pain did not find any consistent pattern on TMS variables 5 conversely to experimental acute pain which reduces corticospinal excitability 3,4. - Ln 231-232: Authors can discuss/described a bit more the findings of Tsao et al. that showed a difference in CoG position in the M1 map in low back pain compared to a painfree group 6,7.
- - 1 Strutton, P. H., Theodorou, S., Catley, M., McGregor, A. H. & Davey, N. J. Corticospinal excitability in patients with chronic low back pain. J Spinal Disord Tech 18, 420-424, doi:00024720-200510000-00008 [pii] (2005). - 2 Massé-Alarie, H., Beaulieu, L. D., Preuss, R. & Schneider, C. Corticomotor control of lumbar multifidus muscles is impaired in chronic low back pain: concurrent evidence from ultrasound imaging and double-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation. Exp Brain Res 234, 1033-1045, doi:10.1007/s00221-015-4528-x (2016). - 3 Burns, E., Chipchase, L. S. & Schabrun, S. M. Primary sensory and motor cortex function in response to acute muscle pain: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Eur J Pain, doi:10.1002/ejp.859 (2016). - 4 Rohel, A. et al. The effect of experimental pain on the excitability of the corticospinal tract in humans: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Eur J Pain 25, 1209-1226, doi:10.1002/ejp.1746 (2021). - 5 Parker, R. S., Lewis, G. N., Rice, D. A. & McNair, P. J. Is Motor Cortical Excitability Altered in People with Chronic Pain? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Brain Stimul 9, 488-500, doi:10.1016/j.brs.2016.03.020 (2016). - 6 Tsao, H., Danneels, L. A. & Hodges, P. W. ISSLS prize winner: Smudging the motor brain in young adults with recurrent low back pain. Spine (Phila Pa 1976) 36, 1721-1727, doi:10.1097/BRS.0b013e31821c4267 (2011). - 7 Tsao, H., Galea, M. P. & Hodges, P. W. Reorganization of the motor cortex is associated with postural control deficits in recurrent low back pain. Brain 131, 2161-2171, doi:10.1093/brain/awn154 (2008). - Reviewer #2: Thanks for addressing my comments.Authors have satisfactorily replied to my concern and I am happy to endorse the paper.I only have a minor aesthetic comment about the quality of figure 3 A & B .It would be nice to improve the quality for overall readership of the article. ********** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: Yes: Hugo Massé-Alarie Reviewer #2: No [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. |
Revision 2 |
PONE-D-21-33464R2Altered Corticospinal Excitability of Scapular Muscles in Individuals with Shoulder Impingement SyndromePLOS ONE Dear Dr. Shih, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please address the few remaining issues raised by reviewer 1. Please submit your revised manuscript by May 07 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:
If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Bernadette Ann Murphy, PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. Additional Editor Comments: You are nearly there, just a few additional comments to address. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed ********** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes ********** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes ********** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes ********** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes ********** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: General comments: I thank the authors for considering my comments. I would urge authors to be cautious in the language used for data interpretation. Differences between groups coming from cross-sectional studies cannot be interpreted as “changes”, “reorganisation” or “modification”. Only a longitudinal study allows to conclude this. Authors should change these terms used throughout the manuscript. Also, I think the English should be revised before publication of the manuscript. Specific comments: Ln 32 : Considering this is a cross-sectional study, it is not possible to conclude in a “reorganisation” of the corticospinal system since it is not known if this is a predisposing factors or a modification which occurs because of pain. Authors should use a the term “different organisation” or “suggest a reorganisation” Ln 279-280: I would be careful in the language used to interpret the findings. The sentence “The present study proved that neurophysiological changes existed in people with SIS, but there were some limitations of our methodologies.” should be modified to “ The present study suggest […]”. Ln 320: “suggest” instead of “supported” ********** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: Yes: Hugo Massé-Alarie [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. |
Revision 3 |
Altered Corticospinal Excitability of Scapular Muscles in Individuals with Shoulder Impingement Syndrome PONE-D-21-33464R3 Dear Dr. Shih, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. 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Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed ********** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #3: Yes ********** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #3: Yes ********** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #3: Yes ********** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #3: Yes ********** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: The authors addressed all my comments in the revised version of the manuscript. I would like to thank the authors for adressing my comments. Reviewer #3: The authors have addressed all queries raised by the reviewers. The authors have performed multiple revisions and I think the work is important. These are difficult muscles to target via TMS so the work will be of interest to groups trying to attempt this type of stimulation for shoulder muscles. ********** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: Yes: Hugo Massé-Alarie Reviewer #3: No |
Formally Accepted |
PONE-D-21-33464R3 Altered Corticospinal Excitability of Scapular Muscles in Individuals with Shoulder Impingement Syndrome Dear Dr. Shih: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. François Tremblay Academic Editor PLOS ONE |
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