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Multisession anodal transcranial direct current stimulation induces motor cortex plasticity enhancement and motor
Gaëlle Dumel1, Marie-Ève Bourassa1, Camille Charlebois-Plante2
1Centre de recherche de l'hôpital du Sacré-Cœur de Montréal, 5400, boulevard Gouin Ouest, Montréal, Québec H4J1C5, Canada; Département de Psychologie, Université du Québec à Montréal, 100, rue Sherbrooke Ouest, Montréal, Québec H2X3P2, Canada.
Objectives:
The present aging study investigated the impact of a multisession anodal-tDCS protocol applied over the primary motor cortex (M1) during motor sequence learning on generalization of motor learning and plasticity-dependent measures of cortical excitability.
Methods:
A total of 32 cognitively-intact aging participants performed five consecutive daily 20-min sessions of the serial-reaction time task (SRTT) concomitant with either anodal (n = 16) or sham (n = 16) tDCS over M1. Before and after the intervention, all participants performed the Purdue Pegboard Test (PPT) and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) measures of cortical excitability were collected.
Results:
Relative to sham, participants assigned to the anodal-tDCS intervention revealed significantly greater performance gains on both the trained SRTT and the untrained PPT as well as a greater disinhibition of long-interval cortical inhibition (LICI). Generalization effects of anodal-tDCS significantly correlated with LICI disinhibition.
Conclusion:
Anodal-tDCS facilitates motor learning generalisation in an aging population through intracortical disinhibition effects.
Significance:
The current findings demonstrate the potential clinical utility of a multisession anodal-tDCS over M1 protocol as an adjuvant to motor training in alleviating age-associated motor function decline. This study also reveals the pertinence of implementing brain stimulation techniques to modulate age-associated intracortical inhibition changes in order to facilitate motor function gains.
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