Latest
Sleep deprivation and the human brain: from brain physiology to cognition”
Sleep strongly affects synaptic strength, making it critical for cognition, especially learning and memory formation. Whether and how sleep deprivation modulates human brain physiology and cognition is poorly understood. Here we examined how overnight sleep deprivation vs overnight sufficient sleep affects (a) cortical excitability, measured by transcranial magnetic stimulation, (b) inducibility of long-term potentiation (LTP)- and long-term depression (LTD)-like plasticity via transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), and (c) learning, memory, and attention. We found that sleep deprivation increases cortical excitability due to enhanced glutamate-related cortical facilitation and decreases and/or reverses GABAergic cortical inhibition. Furthermore, tDCS-induced LTP-like plasticity (anodal) abolishes while the inhibitory LTD-like plasticity (cathodal) converts to excitatory LTP-like plasticity under sleep deprivation. This is associated with increased EEG theta oscillations due to sleep pressure. Motor learning, behavioral counterparts of plasticity, and working memory and attention, which rely on cortical excitability, are also impaired during sleep deprivation. Our study indicates that upscaled brain excitability and altered plasticity, due to sleep deprivation, are associated with impaired cognitive performance. Besides showing how brain physiology and cognition undergo changes (from neurophysiology to higher-order cognition) under sleep pressure, the findings have implications for variability and optimal application of noninvasive brain stimulation.
Understanding and Enhancing Creative Analogical Reasoning
This talk will focus on our lab's extensive research on understanding and enhancing creative analogical reasoning. I will cover the development of the analogy finding matrix task, evidence for conscious augmentation of creative state during this task, and the real-world implications this ability has for college STEM education. I will also discuss recent research aimed at enhancing performance on this creative analogical reasoning task using both transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS).
How to combine brain stimulation with neuroimaging: "Concurrent tES-fMRI
Transcranial electrical stimulation (tES) techniques, including transcranial alternating and direct current stimulation (tACS and tDCS), are non-invasive brain stimulation technologies increasingly used for modulation of targeted neural and cognitive processes. Integration of tES with human functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) provides a novel avenue in human brain mapping for investigating the neural mechanisms underlying tES. Advances in the field of tES-fMRI can be hampered by the methodological variability between studies that confounds comparability/replicability. To address the technical/methodological details and to propose a new framework for future research, the scientific international network of tES-fMRI (INTF) was founded with two main aims: • To foster scientific exchange between researchers for sharing ideas, exchanging experiences, and publishing consensus articles; • To implement the joint studies through a continuing dialogue with the institutes across the globe. The network organized three international scientific webinars, in which considerable heterogeneities of technical/methodological aspects in studies combining tES with fMRI were discussed along with strategies to help to bridge respective knowledge gaps, and distributes newsletters that are sent regularly to the network members from the Twitter and LinkedIn accounts.
IDENTIFYING RELIABLE CORTICAL TARGETS FOR ENHANCING NOVEL WORD LEARNING WITH TDCS: AN FMRI STUDY
FENS Forum 2026
IS THE MIRROR NEURON SYSTEM INVOLVED IN WHOLE BODY BIOLOGICAL MOTION PERCEPTUAL ENCODING? A PRELIMINARY TDCS STUDY OVER THE VENTRAL PREMOTOR CORTEX
FENS Forum 2026
Cerebellar tDCS has no effect on semantic prediction
Cerebellar tDCS modulates retrieval from lexical-semantic memory
Changes in interoceptive abilties following HDtdcs
Enhancing standard addiction treatment protocols efficacy through non-invasive brain stimulation: a tDCS study
Early application of cathodal-tDCS in a mouse model of brain ischemia results in functional improvement and perilesional microglia modulation
The effects of prefrontal vs parietal cortex transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on inhibition and measures of self-esteem
Investigate tDCS neurophysiological mechanisms in healthy volunteers using a novel tDCS condition
Mathematical simulation enlightenment and experimental improvement of tDCS in a model of psychotic transition: a translational study
Modulation of Motor Sequence Learning with tDCS at 4mA
NMDA receptor-related mechanisms of dopaminergic modulation of tDCS-induced neuroplasticity
A novel tDCS rat model to study learning & memory
Repeated anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (RA-tDCS) increases hippocampal cell proliferation in young-adult mice
Add content
Have a seminar, talk, or paper on tDCS? Post it so others working in this area can find it.
Post content