The effect of non invasive brain stimulation on learning leg movements.

The primary objective of this study is to assess whether anodal motor cortex- or anodal cerebellar tDCS can enhance motor skill learning in the lower extremities in chronic stroke survivors and healthy subjects.
This study is a double blind randomized controlled trial. All subjects participate in three experimental training sessions on consecutive days and receive tDCS during the first 10 minutes of every training session. Every experimental group receives one type of stimulation, being anodal motor cortex stimulation, anodal cerebellar stimulation or sham (placebo) stimulation.
It is of importance to conduct this study to know whether tDCS results in any beneficial lasting effects on motor learning. If so, the role of different brain areas in motor skill learning will be better understood and in future studies we can try to maximize these beneficial effects on rehabilitation of walking.

Motor cortex or cerebellar tDCS(transcranial Direct Current Stimulation) will enhance motor skill learning in heatlhy subjects and chronic stroke survivors. Stimulating the motor cortex will result in an increase in offline learning, whereas stimulating the cerebellum will result in an increase in online learning.

Total learning: after day 3
Online learning: After day 1,2,3
Offline learning: After day 2,3

Subjects will participate in three training sessions and receive tDCS (transcranial Direct Current Stimulation) during the first 10 minutes of every training session. Every experimental group receives one type of stimulation, being anodal motor cortex stimulation, anodal cerebellar stimulation or sham (placebo) stimulation.