Abstract
We studied brain changes during an N-back task before and after 10 sessions of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and its relation to cognitive changes. This was a double-blind, sham-controlled, randomized study of tDCS in 27 patients with schizophrenia. They performed an N-back task in a 3 T scanner before and after receiving the 10 tDCS sessions. Cognitive performance outside the fMRI session was assessed using the MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery and other tests at baseline and several time points after 10 sessions of tDCS. During the N-back task performed during fMRI scans, comparing the 0-back vs. the 2-back task, the active tDCS group demonstrated a significantly increased activation in the right fusiform, left middle frontal, left inferior frontal gyrus (opercular part) and right inferior frontal gyrus (triangular part) and reduced activation in the left posterior cingulum gyrus with most of these results primarily due to increases in activation during the 0-back rather than 2-back task. There were also significant positive or negative correlations between some of the brain changes and cognitive performance. tDCS modulated prefrontal activation at low working memory load or attention mode, but default mode network at higher working memory load. Changes in brain activation measured during the N-back task were correlated with some dimensions of cognitive function immediately after 10 tDCS sessions and at follow-up times. The results support tDCS could offer a potential novel approach for modulating cortical activity and its relation to cognitive function.
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Acknowledgements
We are thankful to our patients and patient’s family for their generous support, cooperation and participation. We appreciate very much the supporting from Professor John Marcell Davis (University of Illinois at Chicago) and Professor Hua Jin (University of California, San Diego).
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This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2018YFC2001605); Shanghai Clinical Research Center for Mental Health (19MC1911100); Clinical Research Center at Shanghai Mental Health Center (CRC2018ZD01); Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Major Project (2018SHZDZX03) and ZJLab; the SHSMU-ION Research Centre for Brain Disorders (2017NKX003); Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (19411969400); the CAMS Innovation Fund for Medical Sciences (2019-I2M-5–039); Shanghai Intelligent Psychological Evaluation and Intervention Engineering Technology Research Center (20DZ2253800); the National Nature Science Foundation of China (61933003).
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CBL, RS and CL designed this study. WL, YRW and JLJ acquired the data. YL and HCL analyzed the data, assisted by XYC. YL, HCL and WL drafted the manuscript. THZ, YYT, DZY and JJW discussed the data. RS, CL and CBL reviewed the manuscript and all the authors approved the final version for submission.
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Liu, Y., Li, H., Li, W. et al. Effects of transcranial direct current stimulation on brain changes and relation to cognition in patients with schizophrenia: a fMRI study. Brain Imaging and Behavior 16, 2061–2071 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-022-00676-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-022-00676-z