Chen Nigel T M, Basanovic Julian, Notebaert Lies, MacLeod Colin, Clarke Patrick J F
Centre for the Advancement of Research on Emotion, School of Psychology, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Hwy, Crawley WA 6009, Australia; School of Psychology and Speech Pathology, Curtin University, Kent St, Bentley WA 6102, Australia.
Centre for the Advancement of Research on Emotion, School of Psychology, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Hwy, Crawley WA 6009, Australia.
J Psychiatr Res. 2017 Oct;93:12-19. doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2017.05.008. Epub 2017 May 22.
Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a neuromodulatory technique which has garnered recent interest in the potential treatment for emotion-based psychopathology. While accumulating evidence suggests that tDCS may attenuate emotional vulnerability, critically, little is known about underlying mechanisms of this effect. The present study sought to clarify this by examining the possibility that tDCS may affect emotional vulnerability via its capacity to modulate attentional bias towards threatening information. Fifty healthy participants were randomly assigned to receive either anodal tDCS (2 mA/min) stimulation to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), or sham. Participants were then eye tracked during a dual-video stressor task designed to elicit emotional reactivity, while providing a concurrent in-vivo measure of attentional bias. Greater attentional bias towards threatening information was associated with greater emotional reactivity to the stressor task. Furthermore, the active tDCS group showed reduced attentional bias to threat, compared to the sham group. Importantly, attentional bias was found to statistically mediate the effect of tDCS on emotional reactivity, while no direct effect of tDCS on emotional reactivity was observed. The findings are consistent with the notion that the effect of tDCS on emotional vulnerability may be mediated by changes in attentional bias, holding implications for the application of tDCS in emotion-based psychopathology. The findings also highlight the utility of in-vivo eye tracking measures in the examination of the mechanisms associated with DLPFC neuromodulation in emotional vulnerability.
经颅直流电刺激（tDCS）是一种神经调节技术，最近已引起人们对基于情绪的精神病理学潜在治疗方法的关注。虽然越来越多的证据表明tDCS可能会减轻情绪易感性，但关键的是，对于这种效应的潜在机制知之甚少。本研究试图通过研究tDCS是否可能通过调节对威胁性信息的注意力偏向能力来影响情绪易感性来阐明这一点。五十名健康参与者被随机分配接受对左侧背外侧前额叶皮质（DLPFC）的阳极tDCS（2毫安/分钟）刺激或假刺激。然后，在旨在引发情绪反应的双视频应激源任务期间对参与者进行眼动追踪，同时提供注意力偏向的同步体内测量。对威胁性信息的更大注意力偏向与对应激源任务的更大情绪反应相关。此外，与假刺激组相比，活跃的tDCS组对威胁的注意力偏向降低。重要的是，发现注意力偏向在统计学上介导了tDCS对情绪反应的影响，而未观察到tDCS对情绪反应的直接影响。这些发现与tDCS对情绪易感性的影响可能由注意力偏向的变化介导的观点一致，这对tDCS在基于情绪的精神病理学中的应用具有启示意义。这些发现还突出了体内眼动追踪测量在检查与情绪易感性中DLPFC神经调节相关机制方面的效用。
