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Updated: Jun 22, 2025
Brain Imaging Investigation of the Impairing Effect of Emotion on Cognition
Published on: February 1, 2012
Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex reduced attentional bias
Linzi Wang1,2, Tongtong Zhu1, Aijun Wang3
1Shanghai Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Psychological Crisis Intervention, School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, No. 3663, North Zhong Shan Road, Shanghai, 200062, China.
Abstract:
Previous research has indicated that the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) exerts an influence on attentional bias toward visual emotional information. However, it remains unclear whether the left DLPFC also play an important role in attentional bias toward natural emotional sounds. The current research employed the emotional spatial cueing paradigm, incorporating natural emotional sounds of considerable ecological validity as auditory cues. Additionally, high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS) was utilized to examine the impact of left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) on attentional bias and its subcomponents, namely attentional engagement and attentional disengagement. The results showed that (1) compared to sham condition, anodal HD-tDCS over the left DLPFC reduced the attentional bias toward positive and negative sounds; (2) anodal HD-tDCS over the left DLPFC reduced the attentional engagement toward positive and negative sounds, whereas it did not affect attentional disengagement away from natural emotional sounds. Taken together, the present study has shown that left DLPFC, which was closely related with the top-down attention regulatory function, plays an important role in auditory emotional attentional bias.
