title: Facilitation of corticospinal tract excitability by transcranial direct current stimulation combined with voluntary grip exercise.
abstract: Previous studies have established that transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a powerful technique for the deliberate manipulation of the activity of human cerebral cortex. Moreover, it has also been shown that the non-exhausted voluntary motor exercise increases the excitability of corticospinal tract. We conducted this study to define the facilitation effect following anodal tDCS combined with the voluntary grip exercise as compared with single use of tDCS or voluntary grip exercise. Our result showed that the combination of anodal tDCS with voluntary grip exercise produced a 2-fold increase in the amplitude of MEP as compared with single use of anodal tDCS or voluntary grip exercise. In conclusion, our result could indicate that the treatment outcomes of brain and neurorehabilitation using tDCS would be better when tDCS is combined with the appropriate method of voluntary exercise as compared with single use of tDCS.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Chonbuk National University Medical School, Jeonju, Jeonbuk, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Gi-Wook
authors.initials: GW
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Myoung-Hwan
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Ko
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D019054:Evoked Potentials, Motor / Q000502:physiology*; D019706:Excitatory Postsynaptic Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D018737:Hand Strength / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D017774:Long-Term Potentiation / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D011712:Pyramidal Tracts / Q000502:physiology*; D050781:Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation / Q000379:methods*; D014836:Volition / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: ANOVA; GABA; LTD; LTP; MEP; Motor evoked potentials; N-methyl-d-aspartate; NMDA; SPSS; Statistical Package for the Social Sciences; TMS; Transcranial direct current stimulation; Voluntary grip exercise; analysis of variance; gamma-aminobutyric acid; long-term depression; long-term potentiation; motor evoked potential; tDCS; transcranial direct current stimulation; transcranial magnetic stimulation