Neuromodulation of dorsal and ventral prefrontal cortex during gambling task performance in low and high impulsive...

Impulsivity has been widely associated to risky decision-making and addictive behaviours. Recent research is investigating transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) as a potential tool to improve gambling disorder symptomatology; however, few studies have considered the influence of impulsivity on tDCS effects targeting different brain areas to modulate gambling-related behaviours.

Two experiments were performed with two-session crossover designs using the same methodology and different samples of low and high impulsive participants (N=64). Multielectrode tDCS montages were designed to target right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (rDLPFC) and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) during Cambridge gambling task (GCT) performance.

Results showed tDCS effects on CGT in both low and high impulsive individuals, revealing specific findings associated to rDLPFC and vmPFC targets respectively. A potential influence of impulsivity on tDCS effects was suggested by the differences in delay aversion between LI and HI, shown only in real stimulation but not in sham. Low and high impulsive participants showed differences in task performance, especially in the lowest and highest risk conditions.

Future neuromodulation research may benefit from taking into consideration factors including personality traits, such as impulsivity and participants individual differences that may impact the responsiveness to tDCS, as well as from employing neuroimaging techniques to identify the underlaying tDCS effects on specific brain circuits.