XIV National Congress SISMES - Napoli 2-4 Novembre

Purpose: It is widely demonstrated that high frequency (HF) repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) has facilitative effects and is therefore capable to inducing changes in motor responses. One of the most investigated areas is the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) as it plays a special executive attention role in actively preserving access to stimulus representations and objectives in environments with plenty of distraction such as those of team sports. Volleyball is a team sport in which the attention and coordination components are essential for achieving performance. The aim of this study was to investigate if HF rTMS in volleyball players can improve homolateral motor coordination and cortical excitability. Methods: This study was a double-blinded (participant and evaluator) matched-pair experimental design. Twenty right-handed female volleyball players were recruited for the study and were randomly assigned either the active rTMS (n = 10) or the sham stimulation group (n = 10). The stimulation was performed in one session with 10 Hz, 80% of the resting motor threshold (RMT) of the right first dorsal interosseous muscle, 5 s of stimulation, and 15 s of rest, for a total of 1500 pulses. Before and after stimulation, the coordination and the cortical excitability were evaluated. Results: HF-rTMS of the DLPFC improve performance in terms of the homolateral interlimb coordination, with a significantly decreased RMT and MEP latency of the ipsilateral motor cortex. After stimulation, in active group increase the time of correct execution of the interlimb test in both condition (in-phase/anti-phase). It seem that HFrTMS could increase coordination performances when the velocity of the execution is higher (120 bpm and 180 bpm). Moreover, in active rTMS group significant differences emerged after stimulation in RMT and in MEP latency, while no differences emerged after stimulation in MEP amplitude. Conclusions: The results of this study could provide useful tools to modulate sports training. In fact, these results, if confirmed, could lead trainers to offer their athletes rTMS sessions suitably blended with training. However, despite the interesting results, the study has some limitations such as a small sample, that should be increasing and investigated in the future to clarify all aspects. In conclusion we believe that these results could be of great interest to the scientific community and they could have practical implications in the future.