RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 The Effects of Unilateral Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on Unimanual Laparoscopic Peg-Transfer Task
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2021.04.13.439617
DO 10.1101/2021.04.13.439617
A1 Zaeem Hadi
A1 Aysha Umbreen
A1 Muhammad Nabeel Anwar
A1 Muhammad Samran Navid
YR 2021
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/04/14/2021.04.13.439617.abstract
AB Introduction Efficient training methods are required for laparoscopic surgical skills training to reduce the time needed for proficiency. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is widely used to enhance motor skill acquisition and can be used to supplement the training of laparoscopic surgical skill acquisition. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of anodal tDCS over the primary motor cortex (M1) on the performance of a unimanual variant of the laparoscopic peg-transfer task.Methods Fifteen healthy subjects participated in this randomized, double-blinded crossover study involving an anodal tDCS and a sham tDCS intervention separated by 48 hours. On each intervention day, subjects performed a unimanual variant of laparoscopic peg-transfer task in three sessions (baseline, tDCS, post-tDCS). The tDCS session consisted of 10 minutes of offline tDCS followed by 10 minutes of online tDCS. The scores based on the task completion time and the number of errors in each session were used as a primary outcome measure. A linear mixed-effects model was used for the analysis.Results We found that the scores increased over sessions (p<0.001). However, we found no effects of stimulation (anodal tDCS vs. sham tDCS) and no interaction of stimulation and sessions.Conclusion This study suggests that irrespective of the type of current stimulation (anodal and sham) over M1, there was an improvement in the performance of the unimanual peg-transfer task, implying that there was motor learning over time. The results would be useful in designing efficient training paradigms and further investigating the effects of tDCS on laparoscopic peg-transfer tasks.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.