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tDCS-Induced Effects on Executive Functioning and Their Cognitive Mechanisms: a Review

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Abstract

Executive functions define a set of general-purpose control mechanisms that modulate the operation of cognitive subprocesses and regulate the dynamics of human cognition. Core components of executive functioning are shifting (i.e., task switching, dual tasking), updating, and inhibition. These components are associated with activation in the prefrontal cortex in brain imaging studies. The present review investigates whether different levels of prefrontal activation are related with performance modulations in executive functions. Therefore, we summarize studies that have used a noninvasive brain stimulation technique, namely transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), during performance in executive tasks. This summary demonstrates that tDCS leads to modulations of all core components of executive functioning. Furthermore, the present review makes assumptions about the cognitive mechanisms underlying these tDCS-related modulations. The current state of the literature allows generating such assumptions at least for the components dual tasking and updating.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank Franziska Orscheschek for proofreading the manuscript versions and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on a previous version of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Medical School Hamburg, Am Kaiserkai 1, 20457, Hamburg, Germany

    Tilo Strobach

  2. Department of Neurology, NeuroCure Clinical Research Center, Charité Universitätsmedizin, Charitéplatz 1, 10117, Berlin, Germany

    Daria Antonenko

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  1. Tilo Strobach
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  2. Daria Antonenko
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Correspondence to Tilo Strobach.

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Strobach, T., Antonenko, D. tDCS-Induced Effects on Executive Functioning and Their Cognitive Mechanisms: a Review. J Cogn Enhanc 1, 49–64 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41465-016-0004-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41465-016-0004-1

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