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Updated: Sep 17, 2025
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Combined Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation and Electroencephalography of the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex
Published on: August 17, 2018
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Transcranial magnetic stimulation to left VLPFC or right DLPFC promotes forgetting in working memory
Mingming Qi1, Huiyan Sha1, Jingyan Jing1
1School of Psychology, https://ror.org/04c3cgg32Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, China.
Psychological Medicine
|June 30, 2025
Summary
Noninvasive brain stimulation using left VLPFC or right DLPFC stimulation can enhance active forgetting of unwanted information. This neurostimulation technique effectively regulates memory control for cognitive tasks.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Neuroimaging
- Memory Research
Background:
- Humans can selectively attend to relevant information and ignore irrelevant stimuli.
- Investigating methods to actively forget task-irrelevant information is crucial for cognitive control.
- This study explores noninvasive brain stimulation for promoting forgetting via direct suppression and thought substitution.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the efficacy of noninvasive brain stimulation in promoting the forgetting of task-irrelevant information.
- To examine the roles of left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in active forgetting.
- To differentiate between direct suppression and thought substitute inhibition mechanisms in memory regulation.
Main Methods:
- Participants engaged in memory tasks under conditions requiring remembering relevant and forgetting irrelevant information (IR) or vice versa (IF).
- High-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) was applied to the left VLPFC, right DLPFC, or vertex (control).
- A total of 96 participants were allocated to three stimulation groups (n=32 each).
Main Results:
- Left VLPFC stimulation enhanced memory for relevant information (IR condition) and impaired memory for irrelevant information (IF condition), indicating active forgetting.
- Right DLPFC stimulation also promoted active forgetting of irrelevant information (IF condition) and facilitated memory for relevant information (IR condition).
- Both left VLPFC and right DLPFC stimulation demonstrated significant effects on memory control compared to the vertex control condition.
Conclusions:
- Stimulation of the left VLPFC and right DLPFC can effectively promote active forgetting.
- Noninvasive brain stimulation represents a viable method for regulating memory control processes.
- These findings have implications for understanding and potentially treating memory-related cognitive dysfunctions.
