Transcranial direct current stimulation during a prolonged cognitive task: the effect on cognitive and shooting performances in professional female basketball players

Abstract

The negative effect of prolonged cognitive demands on psychomotor skills in athletes has been demonstrated. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) could be used to mitigate this effect. This study examined the effects of tDCS over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during a 30-min inhibitory Stroop task on cognitive and shooting performances of professional female basketball players. Following a randomised, double-blinded, sham-controlled, cross-over design, players were assigned to receive anodal tDCS (a-tDCS, 2 mA for 20 min) or sham-tDCS in two different sessions. Data from 8 players were retained for analysis. Response Time decreased significantly over time (p < 0.001; partial η² = 0.44; no effect of condition, or condition vs. time interaction). No difference in mean accuracy and shooting performance was observed between tDCS conditions. The results suggest that a-tDCS exert no additional benefits in reducing the negative effects of prolonged cognitive demands on technical performance compared to sham (placebo).

Practitioner summary: Prolonged cognitive demands can negatively affect the athletes' performance. We tested whether transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) could attenuate these effects on cognitive and shooting performance in professional female basketball players. However, tDCS did not exert any additional benefits compared to sham.

Abbreviations: tDCS: transcranial direct current stimulation; a-tDCS: anodal transcranial direct current stimulation; PFC: prefrontal cortex; DLPFC: dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; PCT: prolonged cognitive task; TT: time trial; RT: response time; NASA-TLX: National Aeronautics and Space Administration Task Load Index; RPE: ratings of perceived exertion; CR-10 scale: category rating scale; EEG: electroencephalogram; AU: arbitrary units.

Keywords:

• Fatigue
• athletic
• neuromodulation
• inhibition
• sports

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the assessed athletes for their great level of commitment to the experimental procedures implemented in this investigation, and the NKL for providing the tDCS devices.

Disclosure statement

A.M., L.M., D.G.S.M., G.U., P.S.B., T.C., F.T.G.S., A.F.B., E.M., and A.H.O declare they have no conflict of interest concerning the content of this manuscript. The City University of New York holds patents on brain stimulation with M.B. as an inventor. M.B. has equity in Soterix Medical Inc. M.B. consults, received grants, assigned inventions, and/or serves on the SAB of Boston Scientific, GlaxoSmithKline, Mecta, Halo Neuroscience, X.

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. A. M. is supported by CNPq [304269/2021-2], A.H.O. is supported by CNPq [312489/2021-8], and E.M. is supported by CNPq [315054/2021-2]. M.B. is supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health: R01NS101362 (MB), R01NS095123 (MB), R01NS112996 (MB), R01MH111896 (MB), R01MH109289 (MB). A.M., A.F.B., A.H.O., E.M., and L.M. were supported by The São Paulo Research Foundation - Research, Innovation and Dissemination Centres - CEPID/BRAINN - The Brazilian Institute of Neuroscience and Neurotechnology [FAPESP Process: 13/07559-3].