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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Stimulating the brain could make it easier for people to use their hands.
A new study from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School finds applying electrical stimulation to the scalp and the motor regions of the brain could make you more skilled at delicate tasks. It shows the non-invasive technique, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), can improve the use of a persons non-dominant hand.
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Researchers looked at the effects of using tDCS over one or both sides of the brain on 16 healthy, right-handed volunteers. They also tested the effect of just pretending to do the procedure. The volunteers did not know which one they were getting. During the test, participants used the fingers of their left hand to key in a series of numbers displayed on a computer screen.
Results show stimulating the brain over both the right and left motor regions (dual hemisphere tDCS) resulted in a 24 percent improvement. This was dramatically better than stimulating the brain over only one motor region or using the sham treatment (16 percent and 12 percent improvements, respectively).
tDCS involves attaching electrodes to the scalp and passing a weak direct current through the scalp and skull to alter the excitability of the underlying brain tissue.
Researchers say the findings may help stroke patients recover their motor skills. They explain this method of stimulating both sides of the brain simultaneously might trigger the recovery.
SOURCE: BMC Neuroscience, published online October 27, 2008
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