Animals and Ethical Approval

Male Wistar rats (180–220 g) were purchased from Beijing Vital River Laboratory Animal Technology Co., Ltd., and were used for behavioral experiments (open-field, swimming, gait analysis), electrophysiological recording, western blot, and HE staining analysis. The rats were housed individually in the animal room and were allowed to acclimate to the environment of the animal room for 7 days before the onset of each experiment. All animals were housed under normal light-dark (23°C, 12-h light/12-h dark cycle) with food and water ad libitum. All animal experimental protocols were approved by the Animal Management Rules of the Ministry of Health of the People’s Republic of China and the local Ethical Committee of the Tianjin University. All efforts were made to minimize the number of animals and their suffering. Rats were randomly divided into control (CON group, n = 10), SM for 3 weeks with sham stimulation for 2 weeks (SM+sham group, n = 7) and SM for 3 weeks with rTMS for 2 weeks (SM+rTMS group, n = 8).