Modulation of physiological mirror activity with transcranial direct current stimulation over dorsal premotor cortex

Humans have a natural tendency towards symmetrical movements, which rely on a distributed cortical network that allows for complex unimanual movements. Studies on healthy humans using rTMS have shown that disruption of this network, and particularly the dorsal premotor cortex (dPMC), can result in increased physiological mirror movements. The aim of the present set of experiments was to further investigate the role of dPMC in restricting motor output to the contralateral hand and determine whether physiological mirror movements could be decreased in healthy individuals. Physiological mirror movements were assessed before and after transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over right and left dPMC in three conditions: bilateral, unilateral left and unilateral right stimulation. Mirror EMG activity was assessed immediately before, 0, 10 and 20 min after tDCS. Results show that physiological mirroring increased significantly in the hand ipsilateral to cathodal stimulation during bilateral stimulation of the dPMC, 10 and 20 min after stimulation compared to baseline. There was no significant modulation of physiological mirroring in the hand ipsilateral to anodal stimulation in the bilateral condition or following unilateral anodal or unilateral cathodal stimulation. The present data further implicate the dPMC in the control of unimanual hand movements and show that physiological mirroring can be increased but not decreased with dPMC tDCS.