Enhancing spatiotactile working memory by focalized transcranial direct current stimulation

工作记忆是一种核心的认知功能，它通过维持和操纵相关的背景和动机信息，使人们能够进行目标导向的灵活和适应性行为。WM能力的损害和下降通常在老年人中发现，并且在各种神经和精神疾病中起重要作用。在该项目中，聚焦阳极直流电刺激（tDCS）在左后顶叶皮层应用于调查任务性能，传统的功能磁共振成像和网络分析，以及使用多变量模式分析（MVPA）作为一种新的标记tDCS效应在一个完善的触觉空间WM任务的刺激效果。该项目通过因果干预解决触觉空间WM编码的基本神经科学问题，这可能允许开发新的工具，用于选择性WM增强和WM缺陷的治疗。在研究单位的更广泛背景下，本研究是调查tDCS对跨功能域（项目1-8）的学习和记忆形成以及健康人类寿命的影响的八个项目之一。这些经验项目所追求的高度系统和协调的方法将首次允许分析潜在的神经机制和行为刺激反应的预测因素，不仅在每个项目中，而且在不同的任务和功能域中（在项目9中）。目前的项目将提供关于tDCS如何影响触觉空间工作记忆的独特信息，从而补充了项目1（PI Flöel）中tDCS诱导的空间情景记忆形成增强的研究。与使用言语工作记忆范式（PI Hartwigsen）的P4结果进行比较，将允许调查结果的域特异性。从方法论的角度来看，这些项目中获得的数据将有助于优化和验证电流的生物物理模型（P9+10），从而推动tDCS在健康和疾病方面的未来实验和转化应用。

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.