Department of Psychology and Centre for Brain Science, University of Essex, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK.
Department of Psychology and Centre for Brain Science, University of Essex, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK.
Neuropsychologia. 2017 Sep;104:133-143. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.08.008. Epub 2017 Aug 9.
BACKGROUND: A wide range of neuroimaging and neuromodulation studies have shown that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) plays a pivotal role in decision-making. Of particular interest is the question of its role in decision-making when conditions are uncertain and whether manipulating this neural substrate through neuromodulation changes subsequent risk-taking behaviour. Previous work using the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) suggests that bilateral tDCS stimulation of the DLPFC reduces risk-taking behaviour but unilateral stimulation has no effect. However, participant numbers have been limited and may have biased the estimate of the size of the effect of the stimulation on task performance. OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS: We aimed to test the robustness and generalizability of these previous findings by using a very similar methodology but with a much larger sample. METHODS: During both 20- and 30-min tDCS stimulation at 2mA, we administered the BART to about 200 participants assigned to bilateral DLPFC stimulation of either right anodal/left cathodal, left anodal/right cathodal or sham (Study 1 and Study 2); and to unilateral stimulation conditions (Study 2): right anodal, left anodal or sham with the referent electrode over the contralateral supraorbital region. RESULTS: In the first bilateral study, we found that risk-taking was greater for participants in the right anodal/left cathodal stimulation group compared to those who received left anodal/right cathodal stimulation, but not compared to sham. The results obtained in the bilateral and unilateral stimulation protocols implemented in Study 2 yielded no evidence of any effect of stimulation. Combining the data from both studies, we found no statistically significant differences between mean performances of the nine stimulation groups. Indeed, all 95% confidence intervals for the nine means overlapped, suggesting that these randomly vary around a common population mean. CONCLUSIONS: This study showed that there was no detectable effect of tDCS stimulation on risky decision-making under ambiguity, compared to sham stimulation. Hence, using a much larger sample, we did not replicate previous work reporting a reduction in risky decision-making by bilateral stimulation of the DLPFC compared to sham. When the results of our bilateral and unilateral stimulation studies were combined, it emerged that the most likely explanation for the apparent significant results in our bilateral stimulation study was random variation in performance. This outcome is a further reminder of the need for appropriately sized samples to potentially achieve reliable outcomes in brain modulation studies.
背景:大量的神经影像学和神经调节研究表明,背外侧前额叶皮层(DLPFC)在决策中起着关键作用。特别感兴趣的是,当条件不确定时,它在决策中的作用是什么,以及通过神经调节来操纵这个神经基质是否会改变随后的冒险行为。使用气球模拟风险任务(BART)的先前工作表明,双侧 tDCS 刺激 DLPFC 会降低冒险行为,但单侧刺激没有效果。然而,参与者的数量有限,可能会对刺激对任务表现的影响大小的估计产生偏差。
目的/假设:我们旨在通过使用非常相似的方法但样本更大,来测试这些先前发现的稳健性和可推广性。
方法:在 2mA 的 20 分钟和 30 分钟 tDCS 刺激期间,我们对大约 200 名参与者进行了 BART 测试,这些参与者被分配到双侧 DLPFC 刺激的右阳极/左阴极、左阳极/右阴极或假刺激(研究 1 和研究 2);以及单侧刺激条件(研究 2):右阳极、左阳极或假刺激,参考电极置于对侧眶上区域。
结果:在第一个双侧研究中,我们发现与接受左阳极/右阴极刺激的参与者相比,接受右阳极/左阴极刺激的参与者的冒险行为更大,但与假刺激相比则不然。在研究 2 中实施的双侧和单侧刺激方案中获得的结果没有任何刺激效果的证据。将两项研究的数据结合起来,我们发现九个刺激组的平均表现之间没有统计学上的显著差异。事实上,九个平均值的所有 95%置信区间都重叠,这表明这些随机变化围绕着一个共同的总体平均值。
结论:本研究表明,与假刺激相比,tDCS 刺激对模糊条件下的冒险决策没有可检测的影响。因此,使用更大的样本量,我们没有复制先前的工作,即与假刺激相比,双侧刺激 DLPFC 会降低冒险决策。当我们的双侧和单侧刺激研究的结果结合起来时,出现的情况是,我们双侧刺激研究中明显结果的最可能解释是性能的随机变化。这一结果进一步提醒我们,需要有适当大小的样本,才能在大脑调节研究中获得可靠的结果。
Neuropsychologia. 2017-8-9
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