Scientists have learned to speed up the reaction of athletes through magnetic stimulation of the brain

2023-12-05 18:24:20

Employees of the National Research Nizhny Novgorod State University named after N.I. Lobachevsky and the Baltic Federal University named after Immanuel Kant managed to speed up the athlete’s reaction by using magnetic brain stimulation. Scientists influenced those parts of the brain that are responsible for the creation and perception of images. A professor at the Department of Neurotechnology at Nizhny Novgorod State University spoke about the new method. Lobachevsky Susanna Gordeeva.

The method of transcranial (transcranial) magnetic stimulation (TMS) of the brain is generally accepted, non-invasive, that is, it allows you to influence neurons without drilling holes. It has long been used for rehabilitation after strokes, encephalitis, cerebral palsy, and for the treatment of depressive disorders even in pregnant women. The idea is that a device is applied to the patient’s head, which creates an alternating magnetic field, which creates an electric vortex field inside the brain, activating neural networks.

“The UNN laboratory specializes in researching methods of rehabilitation of post-stroke patients with impaired motor activity,” says Susanna Yuryevna. “As a rule, they cannot move, but after so-called ideomotor training, which is based on the active representation of movement, the condition improves. The thing is that it strains the neural network that is responsible for this movement, as a result of which the movements begin to gradually be restored in reality. In our laboratory, we build neural interfaces that classify brain activity according to motor imagery, that is, we help people imagine motor skills.

“Where is the area of ​​the brain that helps you imagine like that?”

– This is the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, it is located in the front of the frontal lobes. In ordinary life, it is this part of the brain that is activated when planning certain movements. We decided to additionally stimulate it using TMS in completely healthy people – athletes – to improve the reaction and, accordingly, the coordination of their movements.

— Tell us exactly how you did it, who participated in the experiment?

— 60 volunteers participated in the experiment. We put caps with electrodes on their heads, through which we sent electromagnetic impulses to the prefrontal cortex of the brain. The duration of exposure was 10 minutes. As a result, we recorded an acceleration in the generation of corresponding commands in the brain and the movements that follow them. It turned out that such training in healthy people improves coordination and reaction.

– How long?

— Approximately every 1.5–2 hours.

– How did you check this?

— There is an arrow on the monitor that displays the delay between the appearance of the neural stimulus and the pattern, that is, the movement itself. So, in people with TMS this delay was 20% shorter.

— In what sports can this be useful?

— Where good reaction and coordination are needed, for example, a goalkeeper, figure skater, swimmer, etc. Moreover, the method is equally effective for both men and women.

— Are there any contraindications?

— The method is contraindicated for people with a tendency to epilepsy and with metal implants in the head.

— Did I understand correctly that you can’t resort to such stimulation too often?

— Most likely not, because if the method can treat the consequences of a stroke, then it can theoretically cause undesirable effects. But this has not yet been proven.

— Where else, besides sports, can the TMS method be used?

“We are developing a neural interface that will make it possible to predict a decrease in concentration in operators of complex systems, drivers, pilots, and machinists and stimulate their brain activity with a very short impulse.

— Does this mean that in the future all drivers will wear EEG caps?

— The neurointerface is actively moving towards the masses. Instead of those EEG caps with many wires that we use in the laboratory, many other devices have already been developed, for example, elegant hoops, devices in the form of headphones, etc.

Published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” No. 29172 dated December 6, 2023

Newspaper headline: Imagining means winning