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Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation in Neuropsychiatric Disorders pp 197–222Cite as

Target Engagement with Transcranial Current Stimulation

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Abstract

Transcranial electric stimulation (tES) applies a weak electric current to the scalp, which causes an electric field that changes brain activity and behavior. Despite the rapidly growing number of studies that report successful modulation of behavior in both healthy participants and patients, little is known about how tES modulates brain activity. In this chapter, we discuss what we know and what we do not know about the targeting of brain networks with tES. We provide an in-depth review of studies that use computational models, in vitro and in vivo animal models, and human participants to elucidate the mechanism of action of tES. The main emerging themes are (1) that the stimulation interacts with endogenous network dynamics, (2) functional connectivity represents an attractive and underexplored target for tES, and (3) that low-frequency cortical oscillations during sleep and anesthesia have become the flagship network target to elucidate the mechanisms of tES.

Preparation of this publication was partially supported by the National Institute of Mental Health of the National Institutes of Health under Award Numbers R01MH101547, R21MH105557, and R21MH105574 and the Swiss National Science Foundation (CL, grant P2EZP3-152214). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 115 Mason Farm Rd. NRB 4109F, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA

    Flavio Fröhlich Ph.D., Sankaraleengam Alagapan, Michael R. Boyle, Franz Hamilton, Guoshi Li, Caroline Lustenberger & Stephen L. Schmidt

  2. Department of Cell Biology and Physiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA

    Flavio Fröhlich Ph.D.

  3. Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University, Chapel Hill, Raleigh, NC, 27599, 27695, USA

    Flavio Fröhlich Ph.D. & Stephen L. Schmidt

  4. Neuroscience Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA

    Flavio Fröhlich Ph.D.

  5. Department of Neurology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA

    Flavio Fröhlich Ph.D.

  6. Department of Mathematics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, 27695, USA

    Franz Hamilton

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  1. Flavio Fröhlich Ph.D.
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Correspondence to Flavio Fröhlich Ph.D. .

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  1. Interdisciplinary Center for Applied Neuromodulation Department and Institute of Psychiatry Laboratory of Neurosciences (LIM-27), University Hospital and Service of Interdisciplinary Neuromodulation University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    André Brunoni

  2. Department of Psychology and Neurosciences, Leibniz Research Center for Working Environments and Human Factors, Dortmund, Germany

    Michael Nitsche

  3. School of Psychiatry Black Dog Institute & St George Hospital, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Colleen Loo

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Fröhlich, F. et al. (2016). Target Engagement with Transcranial Current Stimulation. In: Brunoni, A., Nitsche, M., Loo, C. (eds) Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation in Neuropsychiatric Disorders. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33967-2_11

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