Universität Tübingen
Neurophysiological Correlates of the Modulation of Cognitive Control via Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS)
Abstract
“Cognitive control of emotional processing is essential for adaptive human behavior” (Faehling & Plewnia, 2016). Research indicates both facilitative and inhibitory effects of emotion on task performance. “Biased attention [as a consequence of dysfunctional cognitive control] towards emotionally salient information is critically linked with affective disorders and is discussed as a promising treatment target” (Faehling & Plewnia, 2016). Hypoactivity of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) is suggested as a causal factor. “Anodal (activity enhancing) transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has been shown to increase healthy and impaired cognitive control over emotional distraction and is therefore widely used for the investigation and experimental treatment of this disorder. In this [… dissertation], event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded parallel to tDCS to track its online effects [on cognitive control of emotion]. Healthy volunteers (N = 87) performed a delayed working memory paradigm (DWM) with [negative …] and neutral distractors during [anodal] stimulation [of the left DLPFC] with different intensities (sham, 0.5, 1, 1.5 mA). Measuring the late positive potential (LPP), an ERP that indexes attention allocation, [it was] found that a valence-specific increase of the early portion of the LPP (eLPP, 250-500 ms) was associated with less emotional distraction in the sham group. Of note, stimulation with tDCS exerted an intensity related effect on this correlation. The later part of the LPP (lLPP, 500-1000 ms) was found to be correlated with reaction time, regardless of valence. General effect of tDCS on LPP [amplitude]s and task performance were not observed” (Faehling & Plewnia 2016). A measure of non-pathological trait anxiety correlated significantly with the late LPP in the complete sample. “These findings demonstrate that ERP recordings parallel to tDCS are feasible to investigate the neuronal underpinnings of stimulation effects on executive functions. Furthermore, they support the notion that the LPP induced by a distractive stimulus during a working memory task mirrors the additional allocation of neuronal resources with a specific sensitivity of the early LPP for highly arousing negative stimuli” (Faehling & Plewnia, 2016).
Author and committee
dc:creator, dc:contributor.*- Author
-
- Faehling, Florian Felix
Identifiers
dc:identifier.*- Identifier
- hdl:10900/81956