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Lack of cerebellar tDCS effects on learning of a complex whole body dynamic balance task in middle-aged (50–65 years) adults

BACKGROUND: Cerebellar transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is widely considered as a promising non-invasive tool to foster motor performance and learning in health and disease. The results of previous studies, however, are inconsistent. Our group failed to provide evidence for an effect o...

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Autores principales: Rauscher, M., Yavari, F., Batsikadze, G., Ludolph, N., Ilg, W., Nitsche, M. A., Timmann, D., Steiner, K. M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7650141/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33324938
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s42466-020-00085-x
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author Rauscher, M.
Yavari, F.
Batsikadze, G.
Ludolph, N.
Ilg, W.
Nitsche, M. A.
Timmann, D.
Steiner, K. M.
author_facet Rauscher, M.
Yavari, F.
Batsikadze, G.
Ludolph, N.
Ilg, W.
Nitsche, M. A.
Timmann, D.
Steiner, K. M.
author_sort Rauscher, M.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Cerebellar transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is widely considered as a promising non-invasive tool to foster motor performance and learning in health and disease. The results of previous studies, however, are inconsistent. Our group failed to provide evidence for an effect of cerebellar tDCS on learning of a complex whole body dynamic balance task in young and healthy participants. Ceiling effects in the young study population are one possible explanation for the negative findings. METHODS: In the present study, we therefore tested 40 middle-aged healthy participants between the ages of 50 to 65 years. Participants received either anodal or sham cerebellar tDCS using a double-blinded study design while performing a balance task on a Lafayette Instrument 16,030 stability platform®. Mean platform angle and mean balance time were assessed as outcome measures. RESULTS: Significant learning effects were found in all participants. Balancing performance and learning rate was significantly less in the group of middle-aged adults compared to our previous group of young adults. No significant effects of cerebellar tDCS were observed. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings are in line with other studies that have failed to prove robust effects of cerebellar tDCS on motor learning. The present findings, however, do not exclude cerebellar tDCS effects. tDCS effects may be more prominent after repeated stimulation, using other stimulus parameters, in patient populations, or in other motor learning tasks. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Not applicable.
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spelling pubmed-76501412020-12-14 Lack of cerebellar tDCS effects on learning of a complex whole body dynamic balance task in middle-aged (50–65 years) adults Rauscher, M. Yavari, F. Batsikadze, G. Ludolph, N. Ilg, W. Nitsche, M. A. Timmann, D. Steiner, K. M. Neurol Res Pract Research Article BACKGROUND: Cerebellar transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is widely considered as a promising non-invasive tool to foster motor performance and learning in health and disease. The results of previous studies, however, are inconsistent. Our group failed to provide evidence for an effect of cerebellar tDCS on learning of a complex whole body dynamic balance task in young and healthy participants. Ceiling effects in the young study population are one possible explanation for the negative findings. METHODS: In the present study, we therefore tested 40 middle-aged healthy participants between the ages of 50 to 65 years. Participants received either anodal or sham cerebellar tDCS using a double-blinded study design while performing a balance task on a Lafayette Instrument 16,030 stability platform®. Mean platform angle and mean balance time were assessed as outcome measures. RESULTS: Significant learning effects were found in all participants. Balancing performance and learning rate was significantly less in the group of middle-aged adults compared to our previous group of young adults. No significant effects of cerebellar tDCS were observed. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings are in line with other studies that have failed to prove robust effects of cerebellar tDCS on motor learning. The present findings, however, do not exclude cerebellar tDCS effects. tDCS effects may be more prominent after repeated stimulation, using other stimulus parameters, in patient populations, or in other motor learning tasks. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Not applicable. BioMed Central 2020-09-22 /pmc/articles/PMC7650141/ /pubmed/33324938 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s42466-020-00085-x Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Research Article
Rauscher, M.
Yavari, F.
Batsikadze, G.
Ludolph, N.
Ilg, W.
Nitsche, M. A.
Timmann, D.
Steiner, K. M.
Lack of cerebellar tDCS effects on learning of a complex whole body dynamic balance task in middle-aged (50–65 years) adults
title Lack of cerebellar tDCS effects on learning of a complex whole body dynamic balance task in middle-aged (50–65 years) adults
title_full Lack of cerebellar tDCS effects on learning of a complex whole body dynamic balance task in middle-aged (50–65 years) adults
title_fullStr Lack of cerebellar tDCS effects on learning of a complex whole body dynamic balance task in middle-aged (50–65 years) adults
title_full_unstemmed Lack of cerebellar tDCS effects on learning of a complex whole body dynamic balance task in middle-aged (50–65 years) adults
title_short Lack of cerebellar tDCS effects on learning of a complex whole body dynamic balance task in middle-aged (50–65 years) adults
title_sort lack of cerebellar tdcs effects on learning of a complex whole body dynamic balance task in middle-aged (50–65 years) adults
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7650141/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33324938
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s42466-020-00085-x
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