Abstract
High-definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS) is a valid brain stimulation technology to optimize cognitive function. Recent evidence indicates that single anodal tDCS session enhances attention; however, the variation in attention produced by repeated anodal HD-tDCS over a longer period of time has not been explored. We examined the modulation of attention function in healthy young participants (39 young adults) who received repeated HD-tDCS sustained for 4 weeks. The results showed a robust benefit of anodal HD-tDCS on executive control and psychomotor efficiency, but not on orienting, alerting, or selective attention (inhibition); the benefit increased successively over 4 weeks; and the enhancement on executive control of each week was significant compared to baseline in the anodal group. In addition, the subjects’ performances on the test of executive control and psychomotor efficiency gradually restored to the initial level in the sham group, which appeared obviously from week 3 (after 9 interventions), but the improvement of attention in the anodal group was persistent. We conclude that repeated anodal HD-tDCS provides a positive benefit on executive control and psychomotor efficiency and has obvious accumulative effect after 9 or more times intervention compared to sham HD-tDCS. Additionally, our findings might provide pivotal guidance for the formulation of a strategy for the use of repeated anodal HD-tDCS to modulate on attention function.
Highlights
As a painless, reversible, and non-invasive brain stimulation technology, transcranial direct current stimulation is usually used to improve symptoms in individuals with neuropsychiatric disease, and, in recent years, this method has been found to be effective in enhancing the cognitive performance of healthy people (Kuo et al, 2014; Davis and Smith, 2019)
We aimed to explore the effect of repeated anodal High-definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)) (12 tDCS sessions) on attention function during a long period of time (4 weeks) and to find the variation trend of attention function measured using an attention test
This study examined the influence of application of repeated 1.5 mA HD-tDCS (20 min) to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) (F3) on the attention function
Summary
Reversible, and non-invasive brain stimulation technology, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is usually used to improve symptoms in individuals with neuropsychiatric disease, and, in recent years, this method has been found to be effective in enhancing the cognitive performance of healthy people (Kuo et al, 2014; Davis and Smith, 2019). The specific functional brain region is stimulated by tDCS in the form of sustained low direct current (usually
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