Enhancing spatiotactile working memory by focalized transcranial direct current stimulation

通过聚焦经颅直流电刺激增强空间触觉工作记忆

• 批准号: 507084150
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Felix Blankenburg
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Arbeitsbereich Neurocomputation and Neuroimaging
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Units
• 资助国家: 德国
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/507084150?language=en
• 关键词: Enhancing; spatiotactile; working; memory; focalized

Working memory (WM) is a core cognitive function, enabling goal-directed flexible and adaptive behavior by maintaining and manipulating relevant contextual and motivational information. Impairment and decline in WM abilities are often found in advanced age and play an important role in various neurological and psychiatric disorders. Within the project, focalized anodal direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the left posterior parietal cortex is applied to investigate stimulation effects on task performance, conventional fMRI and network analyses as well as using multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) as a novel marker for tDCS effects in a well-established tactospatial WM task. This project addresses fundamental neuroscientific questions on tactospatial WM encoding by causal intervention which might allow to develop novel tools for selective WM enhancement and therapeutic treatment of WM deficits. Within the broader context of the Research Unit, the present study is one of eight projects investigating tDCS effects on learning and memory formation across functional domains (Projects 1-8) and the healthy human lifespan. The highly systematic and coordinated approach pursued by these empirical projects will allow for the first time analyzing the underlying neural mechanisms and predictors of behavioural stimulation response not only within each project, but also across the different tasks and functional domains (in Project 9).The current project will contribute unique information on how tDCS influences tactospatial working memory, thereby complementing the investigation of tDCS-induced enhancement of spatial episodic memory formation in Project 1 (PI Flöel). Comparison with results from P4, that uses a verbal working memory paradigm (PI Hartwigsen), will allow to investigate the domain specificity of outcomes. From a methodological point of view, data acquired in these projects will contribute to optimizing and validating biophysical models of current flow (in P9+10), thereby advancing future experimental and translational applications of tDCS in health and disease.

工作记忆(WM)是一种核心认知功能，通过维持和操纵相关的背景和动机信息，使目标导向的灵活和适应性行为成为可能。WM能力受损和下降常见于中老年，在各种神经和精神疾病中起着重要作用。在该项目中，应用左侧顶叶后皮质的聚焦阳极直流电刺激(Tdcs)来研究刺激对任务绩效的影响，常规的fMRI和网络分析，以及使用多变量模式分析(MVPA)作为tdcs效应的一个新的标记物，在已建立的战术空间WM任务中。该项目解决了通过因果干预对WM进行编码的基本神经科学问题，这可能允许开发新的工具来选择性地增强WM和治疗WM缺陷。在研究股更广泛的背景下，本研究是调查tdcs对跨功能领域学习和记忆形成的影响的八个项目之一(项目1-8)和健康的人类寿命。这些经验项目所追求的高度系统和协调的方法将使我们能够首次分析潜在的神经机制和行为刺激反应的预测因素，不仅在每个项目内，而且在不同的任务和功能领域(在项目9)。本项目将提供关于tDCs如何影响战术空间工作记忆的独特信息，从而补充项目1(Pi Flöel)关于tDCs诱导的增强空间情景记忆形成的研究。与使用言语工作记忆范式(PI Hartwigsen)的P4的结果进行比较，将有助于调查结果的领域特异性。从方法学的角度来看，在这些项目中获得的数据将有助于优化和验证当前流动的生物物理模型(在P9+10)，从而推动未来tdcs在健康和疾病中的实验和翻译应用。