Effects Of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation On Skill Acquisition After Sports Fatigue In Basketball Players: A Pilot Study

The acquisition of motor skills is accompanied by changes in synaptic plastic and brain networks’ functional connectivity. Some studies showed that sports fatigue can reduce human’ skill acquisition and consolidation, and impair basketball players’ skill performance. OBJECTIVE: To explore the effect of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) with different stimulation models over primary motor cortex (M1) on skill acquisition after sports fatigue in basketball players. METHODS: Twenty-nine basketball players (female, 9; age: 19.79 ± 0.77 year; training experience: 3.40 ± 2.16 years) randomly received the anodal tDCS concurrent over bilateral M1, anodal tDCS over left M1 (cathodal tDCS over right M1) and sham session. The interval between two sessions was at least one week. The tDCS performed 10 min with the intensity of 2 mA, while the sham stimulation was only active for onset and the duration of 30 s. In each session, the maximal incremental cycling exercise protocol was used to induce sports fatigue, and then received tDCS. Subsequently, the skill acquisition was evaluated using the serial reaction time task (SRTT) and basketball shooting accuracy test. RESULTS: In basketball shooting accuracy test, the shooting accuracy were significantly increased in anodal tDCS concurrent over bilateral M1 session compared with sham session (P = 0.010, Cohen’s d = 0.54). For SRTT, the errors (block 2, 3 and 7) of each block were significantly decreased in anodal tDCS concurrent over bilateral M1 session compared to the sham session (all values of P < 0.05, all Cohen’s d ≥ 0.50). CONCLUSION: We concluded that the anodal tDCS concurrent over bilateral M1 can facilitate skill acquisition and consolidation after sports fatigue in basketball players. This research was funded by Humanities and Social Sciences Research Funds of the Ministry of Education of China (22YJCZH136), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2022QN013), the Research Foundation for Advanced Talents of Beijing Sport University.