Transcranial direct current stimulation effects on healthy language networks.

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), has recently sparked considerable scientific, clinical and public interest because it allows modulation of human brain function and behaviour without significant adverse effects. Compared to other forms of non-invasive brain stimulation, tDCS is a low cost technique that is relatively easy to administer, thereby offering exciting prospects for clinical applications. To date, hundreds of scientific papers have reported beneficial behavioural effects of tDCS in healthy and clinical populations. However, recent empirical studies and reviews have also highlighted variable stimulation effects and small effect sizes in some studies. This has resulted in more cautious and realistic optimism about the potential of tDCS, prompted urgent calls for more rigorous methodology and emphasized the need to increase knowledge about the mechanisms by which tDCS affects complex human brain networks, which is currently lacking. The planned project will use the language domain as a model to address key open questions about the underlying neural mechanisms by which tDCS improves cognitive function in the healthy young brain. To achieve this goal, state-of-the-art imaging technology and simultaneous conventional and focal high-definition (HD-) tDCS administered to different task-relevant brain regions will investigate the immediate effects of tDCS on healthy brain networks. In a first step, functional and structural imaging data and individualized biophysical models of tDCS induced current flow will be integrated into computer simulations of tDCS effects in virtual brain networks. This will allow to derive for the first time highly specific a priori hypotheses about how specific tDCS montages impact large scale neural networks, that can then be validated using the empirical data and advanced brain network analysis.As the first sub project of an associated Heisenberg proposal, this study will establish a predictive model of tDCS effects on language-related networks, thereby laying the foundation to systematically extend this model into different (a) different cognitive domains (Theme 1 of the Heisenberg project) and (b) populations (healthy aging, age-associated clinical conditions; Theme 2 of the Heisenberg proposal).