Effects of acute transcranial direct current stimulation in hot and cold working memory tasks in healthy and depressed subjects

NEUROSCIENCE LETTERS

卷:591

Article

Moreno, Marina L.¹  Vanderhasselt, Marie-Anne²  Carvalho, Andre F.^3,4  Moffa, Adriano H.¹  Lotufo, Paulo A.¹  Bensenor, Isabela M.¹  Brunoni, Andre R.^1,5 

[1] Interdisciplinary Ctr Appl Neuromodulat, Av Prof Lineu Prestes 2565,3o Andar, BR-05508000 Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil

[2] Univ Ghent, Dept Expt Clin & Hlth Psychol, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium

[3] Univ Fed Ceara, Fac Med, Dept Clin Med, Fortaleza, Ceara, Brazil

[4] Univ Fed Ceara, Fac Med, Translat Psychiat Res Grp, Fortaleza, Ceara, Brazil

[5] Univ Sao Paulo, Dept & Inst Psychiat, SIN, Lab Neurosci LIM 27, Sao Paulo, Brazil

关键词: Transcranial direct current stimulation;    Major depressive disorder;    Working memory;    Cognition;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.neulet.2015.02.036

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) hypoactivity and subcortical hyperactivity have been associated to cognitive impairment for non-emotional (cold) and emotional (hot) working memory tasks in major depressive disorder (MDD). We investigated whether an increase of DLPFC activity using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) would differently influence the performance in working memory tasks in depressed and healthy subjects. Forty young adult participants (20 with MDD and 20 healthy controls) were randomized to a single, sham-controlled, bifrontal (left anodal/right cathodal), 2 mA, 30 min tDCS session in a parallel design. The n-back and the internal shift task (1ST) were used as proxies of cold and hot working memory performance, respectively. Active tDCS compared to sham promoted more accurate and faster responses to the n-back task for both patients and controls. Conversely, only patients presented an improvement in response times for the 1ST task. Our findings suggest that the mechanisms of tDCS in MDD involve modulation of both cold and hot working memory. We discuss these findings considering the modulatory top-down effects of tDCS on subcortical structures via prefrontal activation, and how spreading of activation might be different for healthy volunteers versus depressed patients. We also discuss the role of tDCS in cognitive amelioration for depressed patients. Finally, the distinct effects of tDCS in the hot cognition task for healthy and depressed participants are indicative that tDCS outcomes are also regulated by differences in baseline activity of the stimulated network. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

【 授权许可】

Free