Sci Rep. 2025 Nov 19;15(1):40860. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-24637-w.
ABSTRACT
To investigate the synergistic effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) combined with aerobic exercise (AE) on pulmonary function- and heart rate-related indices in sedentary young people and to explore their correlation. Forty-eight subjects were randomly divided into the AE + tDCS group and the AE + sham tDCS group. The AE + sham tDCS group underwent 40 min of moderate-intensity AE and 30 min of sham tDCS intervention, whereas the AE + tDCS group received 30 min of tDCS intervention along with 40 min of moderate-intensity AE, 5 times per week for 4 weeks. In these subjects, the forced vital capacity (FVC), peak expiratory flow (PEF), forced expiratory volume in the first second (FEV1), FEV1/FVC, resting heart rate (RHR), aerobic peak heart rate (HRpeak), heart rate recovery at 1 min (HRR1), and heart rate recovery at 3 min (HRR3) were assessed before and after the intervention. Compared with the preintervention period, the AE + tDCS group showed significant improvements in pulmonary function (FVC, PEF, FEV1, and FEV1/FVC) and heart rate (RHR, HRR1, and HRR3) (p < 0.05). Additionally, compared with the AE + sham tDCS group, the AE + tDCS group showed significant improvements in lung function (FVC, PEF, FEV1, and FEV1/FVC) (p < 0.05), and heart rate (RHR and HRR3) (p < 0.05). Moreover, the difference between the pre- and postintervention FVC, FEV1, and RHR values in the AE + tDCS group showed significant improvement (p < 0.05). This study also revealed a significant correlation between differences in the pulmonary function- and heart rate-related indicators pre- and postintervention. tDCS combined with AE can effectively improve indices related to pulmonary function and heart rate in sedentary young people, and correlations between the FEV1/FVC ratio and the HRpeak, HRR1 and HRR3 values were detected.
PMID:41258417 | DOI:10.1038/s41598-025-24637-w
