Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Human Movement Science journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/humov An acute application of transcranial random noise stimulation does not enhance motor skill acquisition or retention in a golf putting task Lidio Lima de Albuquerque a , Katherine M. Fischer a , Aaron L. Pauls a , Milan Pantovic a , Mark A. Guadagnoli b , Zachary A. Riley c , Brach Poston a, ⁎ a Department of Kinesiology and Nutrition Sciences, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV, USA b School of Medicine, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV, USA c Department of Kinesiology, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis, Indianapolis, IN, USA ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Transcranial direct current stimulation Transcranial magnetic stimulation Motor skill Motor learning Golf ABSTRACT Transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS) is a brain stimulation technique that has been shown to increase motor performance in simple motor tasks. The purpose was to determine the influence of tRNS on motor skill acquisition and retention in a complex golf putting task. Thirty- four young adults were randomly assigned to a tRNS group or a SHAM stimulation group. Each subject completed a practice session followed by a retention session. In the practice session, subjects performed golf putting trials in a baseline test block, four practice blocks, and a post test block. Twenty-four hours later subjects completed the retention test block. The golf putting task involved performing putts to a small target located 3 m away. tRNS or SHAM was applied during the practice blocks concurrently with the golf putting task. tRNS was applied over the first dorsal interosseus muscle representation area of the motor cortex for 20 min at a current strength of 2 mA. Endpoint error and endpoint variance were reduced across the both the practice blocks and the test blocks, but these reductions were not different between groups. These findings suggest that an acute application of tRNS failed to enhance skill acquisition or retention in a golf putting task. 1. Introduction The use of non-invasive electrical brain stimulation techniques such as transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS), and transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS) (Prichard, Weiller, Fritsch, & Reis, 2014; Saiote, Polania, Rosenberger, Paulus, & Antal, 2013; Terney, Chaieb, Moliadze, Antal, & Paulus, 2008) as interventions to improve motor performance has been increasing rapidly over the past several years due to promising findings in the majority of initial studies (Buch et al., 2017). tDCS has been the most commonly used non-invasive brain stimulation technique in the literature and involves passing a constant direct current between two electrodes placed on the scalp to either increase (anodal stimulation) or decrease (cathodal stimulation) the excitability of a specific cortical region, usually primary motor cortex (M1) (Horvath, Forte, & Carter, 2015; Stagg & Nitsche, 2011). However, anodal tDCS is primarily employed as it typically increases cortical excitability and motor https://doi.org/10.1016/j.humov.2019.04.017 Received 10 December 2018; Received in revised form 30 April 2019; Accepted 30 April 2019 ⁎ Corresponding author at: Department of Kinesiology and Nutrition Sciences, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Las Vegas, Nevada 89154-3034, USA. E-mail address: brach.poston@unlv.edu (B. Poston). Human Movement Science 66 (2019) 241–248 Available online 09 May 2019 0167-9457/ © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.