Investigating the Effects of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation to Different Brain Regions on Ankle Tracking Motor Learning, Motor Adaptation, and Brain Connectivity in Healthy Middle-aged and Older Adults and Patients With Subcortical Stroke

Ankle control is essential to safe over-ground navigation for humans. Middle- aged and older adults and patients with stroke whose ankle control is poor often lose their balance or fall. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is an emerging non-invasive brain stimulation technology that has great potential to be applied to neurorehabilitation; however, the optimization of its applications still needs further studies. The aims of this project are to compare the effects of anodal tDCS (AtDCS) applied to the primary motor cortex (M1) contralateral to the moving leg (cM1), posterior parietal cortex (PPC) contralateral to the moving leg (cPPC), and cerebellar cortex (CBM) ipsilateral to the moving leg (iCBM) on motor learning, motor adaptation, and brain connectivity in healthy middle-aged and older adults and hemiparetic patients with chronic subcortical stroke.