Transferring a unimanual motor skill to the untrained hand, a phenomenon
known as cross-limb transfer, was shown to deteriorate as a function of age.
While transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) ipsilateral to the trained
hand facilitated cross-limb transfer in older adults, little is known about the
contribution of the contralateral hemisphere to cross-limb transfer. In the
present study, we investigated whether tDCS facilitates cross-limb transfer
in older adults when applied over the motor cortex (M1) contralateral to
the trained hand. Furthermore, the study aimed at investigating short-term
recovery of tDCS-associated cross-limb transfer. In a randomized, doubleblinded,
sham-controlled setting, 30 older adults (67.0 4.6 years, 15 female)
performed a short grooved-pegboard training using their left hand, while
anodal (a-tDCS) or sham-tDCS (s-tDCS) was applied over right M1 for 20 min.
Left (LHtrained) - and right-hand (RHuntrained) performance was tested before
and after training and in three recovery measures 15, 30 and 45 min after
training. LHtrained performance improved during both a-tDCS and s-tDCS
and improvements persisted during recovery measures for at least 45 min.
RHuntrained performance improved only following a-tDCS but not after s-tDCS
and outlasted the stimulation period for at least 45 min. Together, these data
indicate that tDCS over the M1 contralateral to the trained limb is capable of
enhancing cross-limb transfer in older adults, thus showing that cross-limb
transfer is mediated not only by increased bi-hemispheric activation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:90267 |
| Date | 29 February 2024 |
| Creators | Kaminski, Elisabeth, Maudrich, Tom, Bassler, Pauline, Ordnung, Madeleine, Villringer, Arno, Ragert, Patrick |
| Publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:article, info:eu-repo/semantics/article, doc-type:Text |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | 935781 |
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