Comparing cortical plasticity induced by conventional and high-definition 4 × 1 ring tDCS: a neurophysiological study.
By H. Kuo, Marom Bikson, Abhishek Datta, Preet Minhas, Walter Paulus, Min-Fang Kuo, Michael A. Nitsche. Brain Stimulation, 2013
656 citations recorded by the source corpus.
BACKGROUND Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) induces long-lasting NMDA receptor-dependent cortical plasticity via persistent subthreshold polarization of neuronal membranes. Conventional bipolar tDCS is applied with two large (35 cm(2)) rectangular electrodes, resulting in directional modulation of neuronal excitability. Recently a newly designed 4 × 1 high-definition (HD) tDCS protocol was proposed for more focal stimulation according to the results of computational modeling. HD tDCS utilizes small disc electrodes deployed in 4 × 1 ring configuration whereby the physiological effects of the induced electric field are thought to be grossly constrained to the cortical area circumscribed by the ring. OBJECTIVE We aim to compare the physiological effects of both tDCS electrode arrangements on motor cortex excitability. METHODS tDCS was applied with 2 mA for 10 min. Fourteen healthy subjects participated, and motor cortex excitability was monitored by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) before and after tDCS. RESULTS Excitability enhancement following anodal and a respective reduction after cathodal stimulation occurred in both, conventional and HD tDCS. However, the plastic changes showed a more delayed peak at 30 min and longer lasting after-effects for more than 2 h after HD tDCS for both polarities, as compared to conventional tDCS. CONCLUSION The results show that this new electrode arrangement is efficient for the induction of neuroplasticity in the primary motor cortex. The pattern of aftereffects might be compatible with the concept of GABA-mediated surround inhibition, which should be explored in future studies directly.
Subfields: Neurology, Psychiatry and Mental health
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/cfb3591087952f71c2d9924ed65d993184511968
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In Neurology
- Michael A. Nitsche
- Walter Paulus
- Leonardo G. Cohen
- Felipe Fregni
- John C. Rothwell
- Min-Fang Kuo
- C. J. Stagg
- David Liebetanz
In Psychiatry and Mental health
Citations in the corpus
- Variability in response to transcranial direct current stimulation of the motor cortex. (2014, methodology): “057mA/cm2) [18] for 10min overmotor cortex) [19] and tested the after-effects on corticospinal excitability in the standard way in relaxed healthy individuals.”
- Therapeutic effects of non-invasive brain stimulation with direct currents (tDCS) in neuropsychiatric diseases (2014, positive): “Moreover, it is effective at the physiological and functional levels (Borckardt et al., 2012; Kuo et al., 2012).”
- A technical guide to tDCS, and related non-invasive brain stimulation tools (2015, background): “The above-mentioned electrodes will result in relatively widespread stimulation of brain regions, physical, and probably also physiological effects (Minhas et al., 2010; Kuo et al., 2013).”
- Physiological and modeling evidence for focal transcranial electrical brain stimulation in humans: A basis for high-definition tDCS (2013, background): “Interestingly, the HD-tDCS4×1 montage centered over M1, leads to a more profound and lasting change in motor evoked potential amplitude than bipolar stimulation, albeit with different onset time-course (Kuo et al., 2012).”