Non-invasive brain stimulation to enhance motor adaptation processing in older adults with and without Parkinson's disease

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a multisystem neurodegenerative disorder which primarily causes dysfunction of the dorsolateral striatum and related structures of the central nervous system. People with PD are impaired in the very neural circuits through which they can re-acquire motor skills through practice.They therefore have difficulty with achieving consolidated learning effects. The current project wants to unravel how the learning potential of PD is augmented by non-invasive brain stimulation when applied during learning and whether this differs from healthy older adults. We will conduct a number of related studies to test in which conditions (high definition) transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) will influence the formation of motor memory using behavioral and neural measures. Our working hypothesis is that tDCS will strengthen corticostriatal networks or modify compensatory activity in the brain, albeit differentially in older healthy adults than in those with PD.