Fig 1.
Direct, alternative and pulsatile currents.
(a) tDCS; transcranial direct current stimulation, (b) tACS: transcranial alternating current stimulation, (c) tPCS PD = 125: transcranial pulsed current stimulation with 125 ms pulse duration, (d) tPCS PD = 250: transcranial pulsed current stimulation with 250 ms pulse duration, and (e) tPCS PD = 500: transcranial pulsed current stimulation with 500 ms pulse duration. DCC: direct current component; NDCC: net direct current component, PD: Pulse duration, IPI: Inter pulse interval, D: Duty cycle
Fig 2.
Study design for the comparison of different current types on CSE.
Table 1.
Numeric sensation scores (0 = no sensation to 10 = worst sensation imaginable) reported by participants during experimental conditions.
Scores are reported as mean ± SEM.
Table 2.
Comparison of side effects between a-tDCS, a-tPCSPD = 125, a-tPCSPD = 250, a-tPCSPD = 500 and sham conditions.
The results were considered significant at the level of P < 0.05.
Table 3.
Number of subject’s who guessed the active or sham stimulation conditions.
Fig 3.
The effects of different current types on the lasting effects and slope of decrease for MEPs’ amplitude over time.
Filled symbols indicate significant deviation of the post transcranial stimulation MEP amplitudes relative to the baseline; the asterisks mark significant differences between different testing conditions. Data are reported as mean ± SEM
Table 4.
Significant interactions between mean MEPs of different conditions in different time points.
The results were considered significant at the level of P ≤ 0.001.
Table 5.
Significant differences between repeated post stimulation readings of MEP amplitudes within each condition.
The results were considered significant at the level of P ≤ 0.001.