Lack of cerebellar tDCS effects on learning of a complex whole body dynamic balance task in middle-aged (50-65 years) adults.

BACKGROUND: Cerebellar transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is widely considered as a promising non-invasive tool to foster motor performance and learning in health and disease. The results of previous studies, however, are inconsistent. Our group failed to provide evidence for an effect of cerebellar tDCS on learning of a complex whole body dynamic balance task in young and healthy participants. Ceiling effects in the young study population are one possible explanation for the negative findings. METHODS: In the present study, we therefore tested 40 middle-aged healthy participants between the ages of 50 to 65 years. Participants received either anodal or sham cerebellar tDCS using a double-blinded study design while performing a balance task on a Lafayette Instrument 16,030 stability platform®. Mean platform angle and mean balance time were assessed as outcome measures. RESULTS: Significant learning effects were found in all participants. Balancing performance and learning rate was significantly less in the group of middle-aged adults compared to our previous group of young adults. No significant effects of cerebellar tDCS were observed. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings are in line with other studies that have failed to prove robust effects of cerebellar tDCS on motor learning. The present findings, however, do not exclude cerebellar tDCS effects. tDCS effects may be more prominent after repeated stimulation, using other stimulus parameters, in patient populations, or in other motor learning tasks. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Not applicable.

Dramatic increase in fatigue life in hierarchical graphene composites.

We report the synthesis and fatigue characterization of fiberglass/epoxy composites with various weight fractions of graphene platelets infiltrated into the epoxy resin as well as directly spray-coated on to the glass microfibers. Remarkably only ∼0.2% (with respect to the epoxy resin weight and ∼0.02% with respect to the entire laminate weight) of graphene additives enhanced the fatigue life of the composite in the flexural bending mode by up to 1200-fold. By contrast, under uniaxial tensile fatigue conditions, the graphene fillers resulted in ∼3-5-fold increase in fatigue life. The fatigue life increase (in the flexural bending mode) with graphene additives was ∼1-2 orders of magnitude superior to those obtained using carbon nanotubes. In situ ultrasound analysis of the nanocomposite during the cyclic fatigue test suggests that the graphene network toughens the fiberglass/epoxy-matrix interface and prevents the delamination/buckling of the glass microfibers under compressive stress. Such fatigue-resistant hierarchical materials show potential to improve the safety, reliability, and cost effectiveness of fiber-reinforced composites that are increasingly the material of choice in the aerospace, automotive, marine, sports, biomedical, and wind energy industries.