University "Niccolò Cusano", Italy.
IRCCS Santa Lucia Foundation, Rome, Italy; Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Languages and Literatures, Communication, Education and Society, University of Udine, Udine, Italy.
Behav Brain Res. 2021 May 7;405:113215. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2021.113215. Epub 2021 Mar 1.
In the present work, we evaluated the possibility to induce changes in the inhibitory control through non-invasive excitatory stimulation of the prefrontal cortex (PFC). To this aim, different montages of the transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) were adopted in three separate experiments, wherein different cognitive tasks were performed before and after the stimulation. In the first experiment, participants performed a visual Go/no-go task, and a bilateral anodic or sham stimulation was provided over the scalp area corresponding to the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). In the second experiment, the IFG was stimulated unilaterally over the right hemisphere, and participants performed a Stroop task combined with a concurrent n-back task, which was aimed at overloading PFC activity. Since no behavioral effects of tDCS were observed in both experiments, we conducted a third experiment with different montage and paradigm. Stimulation was provided bilaterally over the dorsolateral PFC (DLPFC) in the context of a classic Stroop task: results indicated that anodal stimulation favored a reduction of errors. Present findings suggest that the bihemispheric stimulation of the DLPFC might be effective to increase inhibition in healthy subjects, and that this effect might be mediated by the implementation of sustained attention, as predicted by the attentional account of the inhibitory control.
在本工作中，我们评估了通过前额叶皮层（PFC）的非侵入性兴奋刺激来诱导抑制控制变化的可能性。为此，在三个单独的实验中采用了不同的经颅直流电刺激（tDCS）模式，在刺激前后进行了不同的认知任务。在第一个实验中，参与者执行视觉 Go/No-go 任务，并且在对应于下额前回（IFG）的头皮区域上进行双侧阳极或假刺激。在第二个实验中，IFG 被单侧刺激右半球，并且参与者执行 Stroop 任务与同时进行的 n-back 任务相结合，旨在增加 PFC 活动。由于在两个实验中都没有观察到 tDCS 的行为效果，因此我们进行了第三个实验，采用了不同的模式和范式。在经典 Stroop 任务的背景下，双侧刺激背外侧前额叶（DLPFC）：结果表明阳极刺激有利于减少错误。目前的研究结果表明，DLPFC 的双半球刺激可能有效地增加健康受试者的抑制，并且这种效应可能通过持续注意力的实施来介导，这是抑制控制的注意力解释所预测的。
