Abstract
Purpose: This study is aimed to preliminary investigate whether transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) could affect explosive power considering genetic background in sport subjects.Methods: Seventeen healthy sports volunteers with at least 3 years of sports activities participated in the experiment. After 2 weeks of familiarization performed without any stimulation, each participant received either 50 Hz-tACS or sham-tACS. Before and after stimulation, subjects performed the following tests: (1) the squat jump with the hands on the hips (SJ); (2) countermovement jump with the hands on the hips (CMJ); (3) countermovement jump with arm swing (CMJ-AS); (4) 15-s Bosco’s test; (5) seated backward overhead medicine ball throw (SBOMBT); (6) seated chest pass throw (SCPT) with a 3-kg rubber medicine ball; and (7) hand-grip test. Additionally, saliva samples were collected from each participant. Genotyping analysis was carried out by polymerase chain reaction (PCR).Results: No significant differences were found in sport performance of subjects after 50 Hz-tACS. Additionally, we did not find any influence of genetic background on tACS-related effect on physical performance. These results suggest that tACS at gamma frequency is not able to induce an after-effect modulating sport performance. Further investigations with larger sample size are needed in order to understand the potential role of non-invasive brain stimulation techniques (NIBS) in motor performances.Conclusions: Gamma-tACS applied before the physical performance fails to improve explosive power in sport subjects.
Highlights
Electroencephalographic recordings have shown a functional role of brain oscillations in motor execution of the body’s movements
These results suggest that transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) at gamma frequency is not able to induce an after-effect modulating sport performance
Further investigations with larger sample size are needed in order to understand the potential role of non-invasive brain stimulation techniques (NIBS) in motor performances
Summary
Electroencephalographic recordings have shown a functional role of brain oscillations in motor execution of the body’s movements. After 20 min of anodic tDCS over the left temporal cortex, a significant enhancement of peak power and a reduced effort perception has been found in cyclists during an incremental cycling test (Okano et al, 2015). Such changes have been investigated in genetic studies (Brunoni et al, 2013; Puri et al, 2015) that have shown an effect of the polymorphism Val66Met in the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) gene in the tDCS-induced plasticity in older adults (Puri et al, 2015)
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