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Effects of Anodal Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on Visually Guided Learning of Grip Force Control

Anodal transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) has been shown to be an effective non-invasive brain stimulation method for improving cognitive and motor functioning in patients with neurological deficits. tDCS over motor cortex (M1), for instance, facilitates motor learning in stroke patients...

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Autores principales: Minarik, Tamas, Sauseng, Paul, Dunne, Lewis, Berger, Barbara, Sterr, Annette
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4381224/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25738809
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biology4010173
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author Minarik, Tamas
Sauseng, Paul
Dunne, Lewis
Berger, Barbara
Sterr, Annette
author_facet Minarik, Tamas
Sauseng, Paul
Dunne, Lewis
Berger, Barbara
Sterr, Annette
author_sort Minarik, Tamas
collection PubMed
description Anodal transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) has been shown to be an effective non-invasive brain stimulation method for improving cognitive and motor functioning in patients with neurological deficits. tDCS over motor cortex (M1), for instance, facilitates motor learning in stroke patients. However, the literature on anodal tDCS effects on motor learning in healthy participants is inconclusive, and the effects of tDCS on visuo-motor integration are not well understood. In the present study we examined whether tDCS over the contralateral motor cortex enhances learning of grip-force output in a visually guided feedback task in young and neurologically healthy volunteers. Twenty minutes of 1 mA anodal tDCS were applied over the primary motor cortex (M1) contralateral to the dominant (right) hand, during the first half of a 40 min power-grip task. This task required the control of a visual signal by modulating the strength of the power-grip for six seconds per trial. Each participant completed a two-session sham-controlled crossover protocol. The stimulation conditions were counterbalanced across participants and the sessions were one week apart. Performance measures comprised time-on-target and target-deviation, and were calculated for the periods of stimulation (or sham) and during the afterphase respectively. Statistical analyses revealed significant performance improvements over the stimulation and the afterphase, but this learning effect was not modulated by tDCS condition. This suggests that the form of visuomotor learning taking place in the present task was not sensitive to neurostimulation. These null effects, together with similar reports for other types of motor tasks, lead to the proposition that tDCS facilitation of motor learning might be restricted to cases or situations where the motor system is challenged, such as motor deficits, advanced age, or very high task demand.
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spelling pubmed-43812242015-05-04 Effects of Anodal Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on Visually Guided Learning of Grip Force Control Minarik, Tamas Sauseng, Paul Dunne, Lewis Berger, Barbara Sterr, Annette Biology (Basel) Article Anodal transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) has been shown to be an effective non-invasive brain stimulation method for improving cognitive and motor functioning in patients with neurological deficits. tDCS over motor cortex (M1), for instance, facilitates motor learning in stroke patients. However, the literature on anodal tDCS effects on motor learning in healthy participants is inconclusive, and the effects of tDCS on visuo-motor integration are not well understood. In the present study we examined whether tDCS over the contralateral motor cortex enhances learning of grip-force output in a visually guided feedback task in young and neurologically healthy volunteers. Twenty minutes of 1 mA anodal tDCS were applied over the primary motor cortex (M1) contralateral to the dominant (right) hand, during the first half of a 40 min power-grip task. This task required the control of a visual signal by modulating the strength of the power-grip for six seconds per trial. Each participant completed a two-session sham-controlled crossover protocol. The stimulation conditions were counterbalanced across participants and the sessions were one week apart. Performance measures comprised time-on-target and target-deviation, and were calculated for the periods of stimulation (or sham) and during the afterphase respectively. Statistical analyses revealed significant performance improvements over the stimulation and the afterphase, but this learning effect was not modulated by tDCS condition. This suggests that the form of visuomotor learning taking place in the present task was not sensitive to neurostimulation. These null effects, together with similar reports for other types of motor tasks, lead to the proposition that tDCS facilitation of motor learning might be restricted to cases or situations where the motor system is challenged, such as motor deficits, advanced age, or very high task demand. MDPI 2015-03-02 /pmc/articles/PMC4381224/ /pubmed/25738809 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biology4010173 Text en © 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Minarik, Tamas
Sauseng, Paul
Dunne, Lewis
Berger, Barbara
Sterr, Annette
Effects of Anodal Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on Visually Guided Learning of Grip Force Control
title Effects of Anodal Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on Visually Guided Learning of Grip Force Control
title_full Effects of Anodal Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on Visually Guided Learning of Grip Force Control
title_fullStr Effects of Anodal Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on Visually Guided Learning of Grip Force Control
title_full_unstemmed Effects of Anodal Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on Visually Guided Learning of Grip Force Control
title_short Effects of Anodal Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on Visually Guided Learning of Grip Force Control
title_sort effects of anodal transcranial direct current stimulation on visually guided learning of grip force control
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4381224/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25738809
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biology4010173
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