Polarity-Sensitive Modulation of Cortical Neurotransmitters by Transcranial Stimulation

By C. J. Stagg, J. Best, Mary C. Stephenson, Jacinta O'Shea, M. Wylezinska, Zsigmond Tamás Kincses, Peter G. Morris, Paul M. Matthews, Heidi Johansen-Berg. Journal of Neuroscience, 2009

898 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) modulates cortical excitability and is being used for human studies more frequently. Here we probe the underlying neuronal mechanisms by measuring polarity-specific changes in neurotransmitter concentrations using magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS). MRS provides evidence that excitatory (anodal) tDCS causes locally reduced GABA while inhibitory (cathodal) stimulation causes reduced glutamatergic neuronal activity with a highly correlated reduction in GABA, presumably due to the close biochemical relationship between the two neurotransmitters.

Subfields: Neurology, Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/aeef0a64f6b25bc7c94eb79cf636298621dc81fc

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Citations in the corpus

Inter-individual variability in response to non-invasive brain stimulation paradigms. (2014, neutral): “However, Kidgell et al. (2013) and Stagg et al. (2009) [31,32] had suggested that SICI diminishes after AtDCS.”
The Role of GABA in Human Motor Learning (2011, neutral): “A previous study using identical stimulation and MR parameters showed that there is no modulation of GABA with sham stimulation [5].”
Partially non‐linear stimulation intensity‐dependent effects of direct current stimulation on motor cortex excitability in humans (2013, result): “At first sight, this seems to contradict the results of a recently published magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) study, which showed a decrease in free GABA concentration within the stimulated area after 10 min of both anodal and cathodal 1 mA tDCS (Stagg et al. 2009).”
Clinical Research with Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS): Challenges and Future Directions (2011, neutral): “Given that a constant electric field displaces all polar molecules and most of the neurotransmitters and receptors in the brain have electrical properties, tDCS might also influence neuronal function by inducing prolonged neurochemical changes.(38,40) For instance, magnetic resonance spectroscopy sh”
Direct current stimulation promotes BDNF-dependent synaptic plasticity: Potential implications for motor learning (2010, neutral): “It is also important to consider that DCS may induce disinhibition (attenuation of GABAergic transmission) during stimulation (Stagg et al., 2009; Nitsche et al., 2004), leading to DCS-LTP.”
Effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on human regional cerebral blood flow (2011, background): “The prolonged effects of tDCS have been attributed to long-term potentiation (LTP) and long-term depression (LTD) (Hattori et al., 1990; Islam et al., 1995; Moriwaki, 1991).”
Low intensity transcranial electric stimulation: Safety, ethical, legal regulatory and application guidelines (2017, background): “Neuroimaging studies with tDCS before (Baudewig et al. , 2001, Lang et al. , 2005, Stagg et al. , 2009) or during neuroimaging (Antal et al., 2011b, Hone-Blanchet et al. , 2015, Rae et al. , 2013, Stagg et al. , 2013) or combined with magnetic resonance electrical impedance tomography (Kwon et al.…”
Battery powered thought: Enhancement of attention, learning, and memory in healthy adults using transcranial direct current stimulation (2014, neutral): “Two years prior to this finding, Stagg et al. (2009) also reported a reduction in GABA concentration following either anodal or Please cite this article as: Coffman, B.A., et al., Battery powered thought: En transcranial direct current stimulation, NeuroImage (2013), http://dx.doi.”
Combining non-invasive transcranial brain stimulation with neuroimaging and electrophysiology: Current approaches and future perspectives (2016, neutral): “• anodal/cathodal TDCS of M1➔ GABA &Glx (Stagg et al., 2009) Limited sensitivity of MRS necessitates temporal averaging which complicates the assessment of online effects.”