Motor Skill Learning May Be Enhanced By Mild Brain Stimulation

Motor skills, which are used for activities from typing and driving, to sports, require practice and learning over a prolonged period of time.

During practice, the brain encodes information about how to perform the task, but even during periods of rest, the brain is still at work strengthening the memory of doing the task

This process is known as consolidation.

Subjects in this study were presented with a novel and challenging motor task, which involved squeezing a "joy stick" to play a targeting game on a computer monitor, which they practiced over five consecutive days.

one group received 20 minutes of transcranial direct current stimulation

other group received only a 30 second "sham" stimulation

In this study, Dr. Cohen and his team directed tDCS to the primary motor cortex, the part of the brain that controls movement.

the skill of the tDCS group improved significantly more that that of the control

had learned the skill better