Figure 1 Experimental protocolThe experimental protocol was structured into 2 distinct experiments, each comprising outcome measurement testing phases (T0, T1, T2, and T3) and intervention phases. The outcome measurement testing phases involved acquiring transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) outcomes and conducting the grooved pegboard test (GPT) to evaluate the participants’ M1 excitability and motor performance, respectively. In experiment 1, the outcome measurements were taken at 4 different times: at baseline (T0), immediately after the intervention (T1), 30 min after intervention (T2), and 45 min after intervention (T3). The interventions in this experiment were electroacupuncture (EA) for the EA group and motor training (MT) for the MT group. Experiment 2 followed a similar structure for outcome measurements, with the phases conducted at baseline (T0), immediately after the primary (primer) intervention (T1), immediately following the secondary (subsequent) intervention (T2), and 30 min after the secondary intervention (T3). In this experiment, one group received EA as the primer intervention followed by MT (EA-priming group), while the other group received the interventions in the reverse order, with MT as the primer followed by EA (MT-priming group). This figure was produced using Adobe Illustrator 2023 by Adobe.