AUTHOR=Jiao Fujia , Zhuang Jie , Nitsche Michael A. , Lin Zhenggen , Ma Yuanbo , Liu Yu TITLE=Application of transcranial alternating current stimulation to improve eSports-related cognitive performance JOURNAL=Frontiers in Neuroscience VOLUME=18 YEAR=2024 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnins.2024.1308370 DOI=10.3389/fnins.2024.1308370 ISSN=1662-453X ABSTRACT=Introduction

Electronic Sports (eSports) is a popular and still emerging sport. Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) and First/Third Person Shooting Games (FPS/TPS) require excellent visual attention abilities. Visual attention involves specific frontal and parietal areas, and is associated with alpha coherence. Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) is a principally suitable tool to improve cognitive functions by modulation of regional oscillatory cortical networks that alters regional and larger network connectivity.

Methods

In this single-blinded crossover study, 27 healthy college students were recruited and exposed to 10 Hz tACS of the right frontoparietal network. Subjects conducted a Visual Spatial Attention Distraction task in three phases: T0 (pre-stimulation), T1 (during stimulation), T2 (after-stimulation), and an eSports performance task which contained three games (“Exact Aiming,” “Flick Aiming,” “Press Reaction”) before and after stimulation.

Results

The results showed performance improvements in the “Exact Aiming” task and hint for a prevention of reaction time performance decline in the “Press Reaction” task in the real, as compared to the sham stimulation group. We also found a significant decrease of reaction time in the visual spatial attention distraction task at T1 compared to T0 in the real, but not sham intervention group. However, accuracy and inverse efficiency scores (IES) did not differ between intervention groups in this task.

Discussion

These results suggest that 10 Hz tACS over the right frontal and parietal cortex might improve eSports-related skill performance in specific tasks, and also improve visual attention in healthy students during stimulation. This tACS protocol is a potential tool to modulate neurocognitive performance involving tracking targets, and might be a foundation for the development of a new concept to enhance eSports performance. This will require however proof in real life scenarios, as well optimization.