Transcranial direct current stimulation and retraining in musician's hand dystonia

Musician's dystonia (MD) is a task-specific movement disorder with a loss of voluntary motor control in highly trained movements. Defective inhibition on different levels of the central nervous system is discussed to be involved in the pathophysiology. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) modulates cortical excitability of the motor cortex. Cathodal tDCS may increase cortical inhibition, whereas anodal tDCS enhances excitability. DC-Stimulation of musicians suffering from MD was expected to (a) increase inhibition through cathodal tDCS and (b) facilitate learning of non-dystonic movement patterns throu…