Abstract
A large body of evidence suggests that repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is clinically effective in treating neuropsychiatric disorders and multiple sessions are commonly used. However, it is unknown whether multiple sessions of rTMS improve cognitive control, which is a function of the neural circuitry of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC)-cingulate cortex in healthy individuals. In addition, it is still unclear which stages of neural processing are altered by rTMS. In this study, we investigated the effects of high-frequency rTMS on cognitive control and explored the time course changes of cognitive processing after rTMS using event-related potentials (ERPs). For seven consecutive days, 25 young healthy participants underwent one 10-Hz rTMS session per day in which stimulation was applied over the left DLPFC, and a homogeneous participant group of 25 individuals received a sham rTMS treatment. A Stroop task was performed, and an electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded. The results revealed that multiple sessions of rTMS can decrease reaction time (RTs) under both congruent and incongruent conditions and also increased the amplitudes of both N2 and N450 compared with sham rTMS. The negative correlations between the mean amplitudes of both N2 and N450 and the RTs were found, however, the latter correlation were restricted to incongruent trials and the correlation was enhanced significantly by rTMS. This observation supports the view that high-frequency rTMS over the left DLPFC can not only recruit more neural resources from the prefrontal cortex by inducing an electrophysiologically excitatory effect but also enhance efficiency of resources to deploy for conflict resolution during multiple stages of cognitive control processing in healthy young people.
Highlights
Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation has become a powerful and non-invasive tool for improving the cognitive functions of the brain
We found that Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) decreased the reaction time (RT) of both congruent and incongruent trials in the Stroop task
Our results suggest that 7 days of rTMS over the left DLPFC may significantly increase neural activity at the conflict-monitoring stage of cognitive control processing during the Stroop task
Summary
Fifty healthy postgraduate students (24 males and 26 females) from the Hebei Medical University in China were involved in the present study from March to November 2016. The age range of the sample was 24–30 years (mean 26.8±1.43 years). The participants were randomly assigned to the rTMS group (25 participants with a mean age of 26.6±1.15 years) or the sham rTMS group (25 participants with a mean age of 26.9±1.68 years) after ensuring that age and gender were matched across the two groups. The composition of the groups (rTMS or sham rTMS) was not revealed until the experiment was completed. We managed the data of participants by serial number, name, and age to prevent confusion
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