Physiological Studies Investigating the Acute Effects of Strength Training, Priming TDCS and Aerobic Exercise on Corticospinal Plasticity

The initial increase in the strength is mainly due to neural changes in the nervous system. In addition, strength training of one limb can increase strength of the opposite limb. In the Chapter 2 of this thesis we used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to characterize the corticospinal responses following low- and high-intensity strength training of the knee extensors. Chapters 3, 4 and 5 investigated the effect of priming techniques such as transcranial direct current stimulation (Chapter 3) and aerobic exercise (chapters 4 and 5) on the corticospinal responses to the strength training and cross-education of muscle strength.