Anodal tDCS over the Primary Motor Cortex Facilitates Long-Term Memory Formation Reflecting Use-Dependent Plasticity

Sham or anodal tDCS (1 mA) was applied for 20 min during motor practice and retention was tested 30 min, 24 hours and one week later. All subjects improved performance during each of the two sessions and learning gains were similar. Our main result is that long term retention performance (i.e. 1 week after practice) was significantly better when practice was performed with anodal tDCS than with sham tDCS. This effect was largeĀ  and all but one subject followed the group trend. Our data strongly suggest that anodal tDCS facilitates long-term memory formation reflecting use-dependent plasticity. Our results support the notion that anodal tDCS facilitates synaptic plasticity mediated by an LTP-like (long-term potentiation) mechanism, which is in accordance with previous research.