Brief summary of Monday's talk - by Karine

I think what makes transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) so attractive is that tDCS seems to bring us some "hope". Not only because it brings hope to patients, but also to normal people.

It's an interesting topic we had on Monday. The discussion started with an argument. Expert swimmers can improve their performance after tDCS stimulation. However, beginner swimmers can also improve their performance by being told to reduce concentration on their body movements. It seems that we can improve our own performance by either external stimulation or internal control. So, what's the difference between these two strategies? I don't know the correct answer actually. Here's what I thought. Here are some thoughts.

Our brain is an energy consuming machine and different parts of our brain compete with each other for the limited energy resources.Take motor performance as an example. Several particular parts of our brain work together to perform motor control, forming a system I would call 'motor control system'. However, the productivity of this 'motor control system' is affected by other systems in our brain, such as the emotion system or the cognition system (which participating participants in the concentration process). Therefore, for the beginner swimmers, if they reduce concentration on their limbs and keep relaxed, they perform better. On the other hand, tDCS may improve the capacity of the motor control system to perform better, perhaps by increasing information delivering delivery speed within the system. Thus, with tDCS, the motor control system may work better with less energy needed, I guess. Although I don't know which aforementioned strategy which of the aforementioned strategies  is more powerful than the other, it is interesting to think about what may happen be underlying them. : )

[Quick note] tdcs+passive vs. tdcs + task-oriented. which one is better? on impairment level and on functional level.