Department of Psychology and Health Research Centre, University of Almeria, Almeria, Spain.
The City College of the City University of New York, New York, USA.
Behav Brain Res. 2020 Mar 16;382:112485. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2020.112485. Epub 2020 Jan 17.
Behavioral and anatomical sex-related differences have been traditionally found in decision-making processes assessed by Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). So far, the administration of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over orbitofrontal regions has shown an enhancing effect over decision-making. However, it is unknown whether there is a sex-dependent effect of stimulation in decision-making, a key question considering previous differences between men and women in IGT and the influence of individual differences in tDCS. The present study examines, at first time, the interaction between sex and tDCS in decision-making. For that aim, in a first experimental phase, ninety-two healthy participants performed the IGT. In a second phase, sixty-one participants received 20 min of anodal or sham tDCS over the right orbitofrontal cortex (rOFC) in a single-session pre-post sham-controlled study. To support the focality of the montage, a Stop Signal Task (SST) was used as a control task and also a numerical simulation of current flow distribution was performed. According to literature, in the first phase, results showed that men outperformed women in the IGT. In the second phase, the stimulation varied the IGT performance according to a sex specific manner: anodal tDCS increased the IGT performance in women, while in men; the stimulation did not produce any effect. Results were mediated by sex-specific morphological differences. These results highlight the necessity to consider the interaction of sex with the effect of the stimulation in future tDCS protocols, specifically in future clinical studies.
行为和解剖性别相关差异在决策过程中已被传统地发现,这些决策过程由爱荷华赌博任务(IGT)评估。到目前为止,经颅直流电刺激(tDCS)在前额皮质区域的管理已显示出对决策的增强作用。然而,刺激对决策的影响是否存在性别依赖性尚不清楚,这是一个关键问题,因为之前的 IGT 研究中男女之间存在差异,并且 tDCS 的个体差异也有影响。本研究首次检查了性别与 tDCS 之间的相互作用在决策中的作用。为此,在第一个实验阶段,92 名健康参与者进行了 IGT。在第二个阶段,61 名参与者在单次单盲对照研究中接受了 20 分钟的右眶额皮质(rOFC)的阳极或假 tDCS。为了支持蒙太奇的聚焦性,使用停止信号任务(SST)作为对照任务,并且还进行了电流分布的数值模拟。根据文献,在第一阶段,结果表明男性在 IGT 中的表现优于女性。在第二阶段,刺激根据特定性别的方式改变了 IGT 的表现:阳极 tDCS 增加了女性的 IGT 表现,而男性则没有。结果通过性别特异性形态差异来介导。这些结果强调了在未来的 tDCS 方案中,特别是在未来的临床研究中,有必要考虑性别与刺激效果之间的相互作用。
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