Balzarotti Stefania, Colombo Barbara
Department of Psychology, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Largo Gemelli 1, 20123 Milano, Italy.
Division of Education and Human Studies, Champlain College, 251 South Willard Street, Burlington, VT 05402, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2016 Jul 19;11(7):e0159555. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0159555. eCollection 2016.
The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) is generally thought to be involved in affect and emotional processing; however, the specific contribution of each hemisphere continues to be debated. In the present study, we employed unilateral tDCS to test the unique contribution of left DLPFC in the encoding and retrieval of emotional stimuli in healthy subjects. Forty-two right handed undergraduate students received either anodal, cathodal or sham stimulation of left DLPFC while viewing neutral, pleasant, and unpleasant pictures. After completing a filler task, participants were asked to remember as many pictures as possible. Results showed that participants were able to remember a larger amount of emotional (both pleasant and unpleasant) pictures than of neutral ones, regardless of the type of tDCS condition. Participants who received anodal stimulation recalled a significantly higher number of pleasant images than participants in the sham and cathodal conditions, while no differences emerged in the recall of neutral and unpleasant pictures. We conclude that our results provide some support to the role of left prefrontal cortex in the encoding and retrieval of pleasant stimuli.
背外侧前额叶皮质（DLPFC）通常被认为与情感和情绪加工有关；然而，每个半球的具体作用仍存在争议。在本研究中，我们采用单侧经颅直流电刺激（tDCS）来测试健康受试者中左侧DLPFC在情绪刺激编码和检索中的独特作用。42名右利手本科生在观看中性、愉悦和不愉快的图片时，接受了左侧DLPFC的阳极、阴极或假刺激。完成一项填充任务后，要求参与者尽可能多地记住图片。结果表明，无论tDCS条件类型如何，参与者能够记住的情绪（愉悦和不愉快）图片数量都多于中性图片。接受阳极刺激的参与者回忆起的愉悦图像数量显著高于假刺激和阴极刺激条件下的参与者，而在中性和不愉快图片的回忆方面没有差异。我们得出结论，我们的结果为左侧前额叶皮质在愉悦刺激编码和检索中的作用提供了一些支持。
