tDCS

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.

Repeated anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (RA-tDCS) increases hippocampal cell proliferation in young-adult mice

tDCS montage optimization for the treatment of epilepsy using Neurotwins

Bernstein Conference 2024

Self-reported cognitive confidence and negative beliefs about thinking predict metacognitive sensitivity in a pilot transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) experiment

FENS Forum 2024

Cerebellar tDCS has no effect on semantic prediction

Cerebellar tDCS modulates retrieval from lexical-semantic memory

Changes in interoceptive abilties following HDtdcs

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

Enhancing standard addiction treatment protocols efficacy through non-invasive brain stimulation: a tDCS study

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

Assessing the role of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) in rescuing stress-induced working memory (WM) deficits – an EEG-based study

FENS Forum 2024

Effect of a combined intervention of tDCS and physical exercise in people over 65 years of age: FRAIL TRAIN

FENS Forum 2024

Modulation of fear extinction in mice by offline or online tDCS

FENS Forum 2024

Modulation of sensory deficits in Shank3b mice through cathodal tDCS

FENS Forum 2024

Prefrontal-tDCS rescues hippocampal dopamine signalling, resulting in cellular, functional and behavioural improvements and amyloid-β reduction in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease

FENS Forum 2024

tDCS treatment improves psychopathological symptoms in adolescents with anorexia nervosa: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study

FENS Forum 2024

Understanding neuromodulation pathways in tDCS: Brainstem recording following DC-TNS in anesthetized rats

FENS Forum 2024