Cerebellar Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (ctDCS) Impairs Balance Control in Healthy Individuals
- 421 Downloads
- 3 Citations
Abstract
The cerebellum plays an important role in the planning, initiation and stability of movements, as well as in postural control and balance. Modulation of neural regions underlying balance control may be a potential alternative to treat balance impairments in cerebellar patients. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a noninvasive and safe tool capable to modulate cerebellar activity. We aim to investigate the effects of cerebellar tDCS (ctDCS) on postural balance in healthy individuals. Fifteen healthy and right-handed subjects were submitted to three sessions of ctDCS (anodal, cathodal and sham), separated by at least 48 h. In each session, tests of static (right and left Athlete Single Leg tests) and dynamic balance (Limits of Stability test) were performed using the Biodex Balance System before and immediately after the ctDCS. The results revealed that cathodal ctDCS impaired static balance of healthy individuals, reflected in higher scores on overall stability index when compared to baseline for right (p = 0.034) and left (p = 0.01) Athlete Single Leg test. In addition, we found significant impairment for left Athlete Single Leg test in comparison to sham stimulation (p = 0.04). As far as we know, this is the first study that points changes on balance control after ctDCS in healthy individuals. This finding raises insights to further investigation about cerebellar modulation for neurological patients.
Keywords
Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) Cerebellum Postural balanceNotes
Compliance with Ethical Standards
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Funding
No funding was received for this study. Kátia Monte-Silva is supported by CNPq.
Supplementary material
References
- 1.Barlow JS. The cerebellum and adaptive control. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- 2.Fernandez L, Albein-Urios N, Kirkovski M, McGinley JL, Murphy AT, Hyde C, Stokes MA, Rinehart NJ, Enticott PG. Cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to the right cerebellar hemisphere affects motor adaptation during gait. Cerebellum. 2016; doi: 10.1007/s12311-016-0788-7.Google Scholar
- 3.Ferrucci R, Brunoni AR, Parazzini M, Vergari M, Rossi E, Fumagalli M, Mameli F, Rosa M, Giannicola G, Zago S, Priori A. Modulating human procedural learning by cerebellar transcranial direct current stimulation. Cerebellum. 2013;12:485–92. doi: 10.1007/s12311-012-0436-9.CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
- 4.Steiner KM, Enders A, Thier W, Batsikadze G, Ludolph N, Ilg W, Timmann D. Cerebellar tDCS does not improve learning in a complex whole body dynamic balance task in young healthy subjects. PLoS One. 2016;11:e0163598. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0163598.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentralGoogle Scholar
- 5.Jayaram G, Tang B, Pallegadda R, Vasudevan EV, Celnik P, Bastian A. Modulating locomotor adaptation with cerebellar stimulation. J Neurophysiol. 2012;107:2950–7. doi: 10.1152/jn.00645.2011.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentralGoogle Scholar
- 6.Oldfield RC. The assessment and analysis of handedness: the Edinburgh inventory. Neuropsychologia. 1971;9:97–113.CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
- 7.Nitsche MA, Cohen LG, Wassermann EM, Priori A, Lang N, Antal A, Paulus W, Hummel F, Boggio PS, Fregni F. Transcranial direct current stimulation: state of the art 2008. Brain stimulation. 2008;1:206–23.CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
- 8.Paterno MV, Myer GD, Ford KR, Hewett TE. Neuromuscular training improves single-limb stability in young female athletes. The Journal of orthopaedic and sports physical therapy. 2004;34:305–16. doi: 10.2519/jospt.2004.34.6.305.CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
- 9.Soysal Tomruk M, Uz MZ, Kara B, Idiman E. Effects of Pilates exercises on sensory interaction, postural control and fatigue in patients with multiple sclerosis. Multiple sclerosis and related disorders. 2016;7:70–3. doi: 10.1016/j.msard.2016.03.008.CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
- 10.Nitsche MA, Paulus W. Sustained excitability elevations induced by transcranial DC motor cortex stimulation in humans. Neurology. 2001;57:1899–901.CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
- 11.Zuchowski ML, Timmann D, Gerwig M. Acquisition of conditioned eyeblink responses is modulated by cerebellar tDCS. Brain stimulation. 2014;7:525–31. doi: 10.1016/j.brs.2014.03.010.CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
- 12.Herzfeld DJ, Pastor D, Haith AM, Rossetti Y, Shadmehr R, O'Shea J. Contributions of the cerebellum and the motor cortex to acquisition and retention of motor memories. NeuroImage. 2014;98:147–58. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.04.076.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentralGoogle Scholar
- 13.Galea JM, Jayaram G, Ajagbe L, Celnik P. Modulation of cerebellar excitability by polarity-specific noninvasive direct current stimulation. The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience. 2009;29:9115–22. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2184-09.2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- 14.Ouchi Y, Okada H, Yoshikawa E, Nobezawa S, Futatsubashi M. Brain activation during maintenance of standing postures in humans. Brain : a journal of neurology. 1999;122(Pt 2):329–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- 15.Balsters JH, Laird AR, Fox PT, Eickhoff SB. Bridging the gap between functional and anatomical features of cortico-cerebellar circuits using meta-analytic connectivity modeling. Hum Brain Mapp. 2014;35:3152–69. doi: 10.1002/hbm.22392.CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar