Citation

Holgado D, Vadillo MA, Sanabria D. Front. Physiol. 2019; 10: e483.

Affiliation

Department of Experimental Psychology, Mind, Brain and Behavior Research Centre, University of Granada, Granada, Spain.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Frontiers Research Foundation)

DOI

10.3389/fphys.2019.00483

PMID

31068840

PMCID

PMC6491773

Abstract

Since the term “Neurodoping” was introduced (Davis, 2013; Reardon, 2016), the use of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has gained popularity in Sports Science within a short space of time, based on the same straightforward logic: if exercise is to some extent determined by brain activity, then stimulating brain areas related to exercise should improve physical and sport performance. In fact, companies like Halo Sport claim that their “do-it-yourself” tDCS device has ergogenic effects and can increase sport and exercise performance (Reardon, 2016). In a recent review in Frontiers in Physiology, Angius et al. (2017) suggested that tDCS might have a positive effect on exercise capacity, although the mechanisms of that potential benefit were unknown. However, the expectations derived from those initial studies showing tDCS as an effective technique to increase exercise performance or reduce rate of perceived exertion (RPE), have left room for many others that do not seem to support the effectiveness of tDCS in the Sports science...

Language: en

Keywords

brain stimulation; doping; exercise performance; meta-analaysis; sports performance; tDCS — transcranial direct current stimulation