TY - JOUR AU - Furuya, Shinichi AU - Nitsche, Michael A. AU - Paulus, Walter AU - Altenmüller, Eckart PY - 2013 DA - 2013/03/16 TI - Early optimization in finger dexterity of skilled pianists: implication of transcranial stimulation JO - BMC Neuroscience SP - 35 VL - 14 IS - 1 AB - It has been shown that non-invasive transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) facilitates motor functions in healthy adults and stroke patients. However, little is known about neuroplastic changes induced by tDCS in highly-trained individuals. Here we addressed this issue by assessing the effect of tDCS on dexterity of finger movements in healthy adult pianists. Twelve pianists practiced bimanual keystrokes in an in-phase manner while bilateral tDCS (left anodal/right cathodal or vice versa) of the primary motor cortex was performed. Before and after stimulation, each participant was asked to perform the trained successive keystrokes, and to repetitively strike a key with each of the fingers as fast and accurate as possible while keeping the remaining fingers immobilized voluntarily. SN - 1471-2202 UR - https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2202-14-35 DO - 10.1186/1471-2202-14-35 ID - Furuya2013 ER -