In winter sports ‘brain doping’, more means less in performance, Chinese study finds
- Researchers say tDCS technology can have an immediate positive effect but higher currents don’t lead to better results
- But the reasons why remain unclear
Electric stimulation of the brain can help winter sports athletes perform better, but increasing the current does not lead to better results as previously thought, according to a group of Chinese scientists.
The US Winter Olympic team has been using a device with electrodes attached to an athlete’s head to send direct electric current to various parts of the brain responsible for movement, according to US Ski and Snowboard.
The stimulation could improve the athletes’ jumping force by 70 per cent and their coordination by 80 per cent, but the 2 milliampere (mA) current produced by the device was considered “fairly intense” by some brain scientists, according to an investigation by the journal Nature in 2016 that dubbed the technology “brain doping”.
In a paper published on Saturday in the Chinese Journal of Tissue Engineering Research, Professor Xia Zhongliang and his colleagues with the school of physical education at Shenyang Sport University, said an experiment involving 36 Chinese athletes suggested that half of the dose would suffice.
The athletes receiving 1mA stimulation outperformed those receiving 2mA in some stability and balancing tests, the team said.
“According to the results of this study, the use of higher stimulation currents did not enhance the improvement in dynamic stability,” Xia’s team said in the peer-reviewed publication run by the Chinese Association of Rehabilitation Medicine.