Improving Working Memory with Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) | Neuro3

In the Neuroscience in 3 minutes (Neuro3) series we discuss recent or cool neuroscience studies. Today Wischnewski et al. (2021) on the effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on working memory performance.

In a recent study, we have summarized the effects of 87 experiments where transcranial direct current stimulation, or tDCS, was used to improve working memory performance. Working memory, is crucially involved in many cognitive abilities. However, some research studies show that tDCS indeed can improve working memory, whereas other did not find significant effects.

This is partially due to experiments using different tDCS setups. In our study, we used computational modeling to figure out where exactly all these previous studies stimulated the brain with tDCS. We correlated our brain models with the effect on working memory that was reported.

Thereby a map was created where tDCS-induced electric fields relate most strongly to improved working memory. We found that the lower dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and upper inferior frontal gyrus most likely relates to tDCS-related improvements of working memory.

Reference:
Wischnewski, M., Mantell, K. E., & Opitz, A. (2021). Identifying regions in prefrontal cortex related to working memory improvement: A novel meta-analytic method using electric field modeling. Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews, 130, 147–161. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2021.08.017

Narrated by:
Miles Wischnewski

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