Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation of the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex Modulates Cognitive Function Related to...

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Rehabilitation Medicine
• Cognitive Science

Background:

• Sequential tasks and cognitive decisions are crucial for daily goal achievement.
• Transcranial direct current electrical stimulation (tDCS) shows potential for modulating cognitive functions.
• Investigating tDCS effects on motor execution and cognitive decision-making is relevant for rehabilitation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore if tDCS of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) enhances performance in a task combining motor actions and cognitive decisions.
• To determine the specificity of tDCS effects on cognitive tasks versus pure dexterity tasks.

Main Methods:

• Forty healthy participants were divided into real or sham tDCS groups.
• Anodal tDCS was applied to the left DLPFC (F3) for 20 minutes at 1.5 mA.
• Participants performed a sequential motor task with and without a decision-making component (S1 and S2) before and after stimulation.

Main Results:

• Real tDCS significantly reduced S2 trajectory length compared to sham tDCS, indicating improved performance in the task requiring cognitive decisions.
• No significant difference in S1 trajectory length was observed between real and sham tDCS groups, suggesting no improvement in pure dexterity.
• A single tDCS session modulated cognitive aspects of motor execution.

Conclusions:

• tDCS applied to the left DLPFC can enhance performance in tasks requiring cognitive decisions integrated with motor execution.
• tDCS did not improve performance on tasks solely involving manual dexterity.
• These findings support the potential application of tDCS as a novel rehabilitation strategy for patients with motor execution impairments.