Tagging motor memories with transcranial direct current stimulation allows later artificially-controlled retrieval

  1. Daichi Nozaki  Is a corresponding author
  2. Atsushi Yokoi
  3. Takahiro Kimura
  4. Masaya Hirashima
  5. Jean-Jacques Orban de Xivry
  1. The University of Tokyo, Japan
  2. University of Western Ontario, Canada
  3. Kochi University of Technology, Japan
  4. National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Japan
  5. Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium

Abstract

We demonstrate that human motor memories can be artificially tagged and later retrieved by noninvasive transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS). Participants learned to adapt reaching movements to two conflicting dynamical environments that were each associated with a different tDCS polarity (anodal or cathodal tDCS) on the sensorimotor cortex. That is, we sought to determine whether divergent background activity levels within the sensorimotor cortex (anodal: higher activity; cathodal: lower activity) give rise to distinct motor memories. After a training session, application of each tDCS polarity automatically resulted in the retrieval of the motor memory corresponding to that polarity. These results reveal that artificial modulation of neural activity in the sensorimotor cortex through tDCS can act as a context for the formation and recollection of motor memories.

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Daichi Nozaki

    Division of Physical and Health Education, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
    For correspondence
    nozaki@p.u-tokyo.ac.jp
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-1338-8337
  2. Atsushi Yokoi

    The Brain and Mind Institute, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-7428-3344
  3. Takahiro Kimura

    Research Institute, Kochi University of Technology, Kami City, Japan
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Masaya Hirashima

    Center for Information and Neural Networks, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Suita, Japan
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  5. Jean-Jacques Orban de Xivry

    Institute of Information and Communication Technologies, Electronics, and Applied Mathematics, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-4603-7939

Funding

Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (KAKENHI A26242062)

  • Daichi Nozaki
  • Masaya Hirashima

NEXT Program (LS034)

  • Daichi Nozaki

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (Japan-Belgium Research Cooperative Program)

  • Daichi Nozaki
  • Jean-Jacques Orban de Xivry

Brains Back to Brussels fellowship

  • Jean-Jacques Orban de Xivry

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Human subjects: The experiments were conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. The ethics committee from The University of Tokyo approved all experimental procedures. Prior to the experiments, participants provided informed consent.

Copyright

© 2016, Nozaki et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

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  1. Daichi Nozaki
  2. Atsushi Yokoi
  3. Takahiro Kimura
  4. Masaya Hirashima
  5. Jean-Jacques Orban de Xivry
(2016)
Tagging motor memories with transcranial direct current stimulation allows later artificially-controlled retrieval
eLife 5:e15378.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.15378

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.15378

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