Brain Imaging and Neural Dynamics Research Group, IRCCS San Camillo Hospital, Venice, Italy.
Department of Neurology, NeXT: Neurophysiology and Neuroengineering of Human-Technology Interaction Research Unit, Campus Bio-Medico University, Rome, Italy.
Hum Brain Mapp. 2019 Jun 15;40(9):2736-2746. doi: 10.1002/hbm.24556. Epub 2019 Mar 10.
Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a noninvasive brain stimulation technique able to induce plasticity phenomena. Although tDCS application has been spreading over a variety of neuroscience domains, the mechanisms by which the stimulation acts are largely unknown. We investigated tDCS effects on cortical gamma synchrony, which is a crucial player in cortical function. We performed a randomized, sham-controlled, double-blind study on healthy subjects, combining tDCS and magnetoencephalography. By driving brain activity via 40 Hz auditory stimulation during magnetoencephalography, we experimentally tuned cortical gamma synchrony and measured it before and after bilateral tDCS of the primary sensory-motor hand regions (anode left, cathode right). We demonstrated that the stimulation induces a remarkable decrease of gamma synchrony (13 out of 15 subjects), as measured by gamma phase at 40 Hz. tDCS has strong remote effects, as the cortical region mostly affected was located far away from the stimulation site and covered a large area of the right centro-temporal cortex. No significant differences between stimulations were found for baseline gamma synchrony, as well as early transient auditory responses. This suggests a specific tDCS effect on externally driven gamma synchronization. This study sheds new light on the effect of tDCS on cortical function showing that the net effect of the stimulation on cortical gamma synchronization is an inhibition.
经颅直流电刺激(tDCS)是一种非侵入性的脑刺激技术,能够诱导可塑性现象。尽管 tDCS 的应用已经扩展到多种神经科学领域,但刺激的作用机制在很大程度上仍不清楚。我们研究了 tDCS 对皮质伽马同步性的影响,这是皮质功能的关键因素。我们在健康受试者中进行了一项随机、假刺激对照、双盲研究,将 tDCS 与脑磁图相结合。通过在脑磁图期间进行 40 Hz 听觉刺激来驱动大脑活动,我们实验性地调整了皮质伽马同步性,并在双侧初级感觉运动手区(左阳极,右阴极)tDCS 前后进行了测量。我们证明,刺激会引起伽马同步性的显著下降(15 名受试者中有 13 名),这是通过 40 Hz 的伽马相位来衡量的。tDCS 具有很强的远程效应,因为受影响最大的皮质区域远离刺激部位,覆盖了右中央颞叶的很大一部分。基线伽马同步性以及早期瞬态听觉反应在刺激之间没有发现显著差异。这表明 tDCS 对外部驱动的伽马同步具有特异性影响。这项研究揭示了 tDCS 对皮质功能的影响,表明刺激对皮质伽马同步性的净效应是抑制。