The effect of virtual reality with and without transcranial direct current stimulation on the balance performance of sedentary adolescent girls

Today, although virtual reality is suggested as a suitable and exciting alternative to other training methods, but all aspects of its effectiveness in combination with other interventions have not yet been well clarified. Therefore, our aim was to determine the effect of virtual reality with and without transcranial direct current stimulation on balance performance. The participants in the research were 36 sedentary adolescent girls who were purposefully selected and voluntarily participated in this study. The subjects were randomly divided into three control groups (12 people), VR+a-tDCS (12 people) and VR+sh-tDCS (12 people). First, each group received brain stimulation (anodal or sham) for 20 minutes with an intensity of 2 MA, then they performed virtual reality exercises for one hour. The control group did not receive any intervention. Each group conducted 12 sessions (3 sessions per week) with one day in between. Y and STROK tests were used to evaluate balance. The statistical test of the analysis Two-way Mixed ANOVA was used at the significance level of 0.05 and SPSS23 software. Static balance in the anodal group were higher than the sham group (p=0.004) and control group (p=0.001). Also, the dynamic balance in the anodal group was higher than the sham group (p=0.013) and the control group (p<0.001). The findings showed that anodal stimulation can increase the effectiveness of virtual exercises more and more lastingly. And this difference was maintained in the retention stage so that performance of the VR+a-tDCS group was superior to the other two groups.