The effect of anodal transcranial direct current stimulation on multi-limb coordination performance

Motor coordination is the combination of body movements performed in a well-planned and controlled manner based upon motor commands from the brain. Several interventions have been in practice to improve motor control. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is getting a lot of attention these days for its effect in improving motor functions. Studies focusing on the ability of tDCS to improve motor control, inhibition and coordination are sparse. Therefore, the influence of tDCS stimulation at the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) on motor control and coordination was investigated, in a sham-controlled double-blinded pseudo-randomized design, with a multi-limb coordination task in healthy young subjects. Number of errors and reaction time were used as outcome parameters. Our findings showed that, anodal tDCS reduced the number of errors only in the heterolateral coordination condition, however there was no change in reaction time. No changes were found for the homolateral and three-limb coordination condition. This work is supported by the Flanders Fund for Scientific Research (G075810) and the Special Research Fund UHasselt. The authors like to thank I-BioStat (Interuniversity Institute for Biostatistics and statistical Bioinformatics, Hasselt University) for their contribution in the statistical analysis.