Dataset Information

TDCS over the left prefrontal Cortex improves mental flexibility and inhibition in geriatric inpatients with symptoms of depression or anxiety: A pilot randomized controlled trial.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Patients with depression and/or anxiety are commonly seen in inpatient geriatric settings. Both disorders are associated with an increased risk of cognitive impairments, notably in executive functioning. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), a type of non-invasive brain stimulation, involves the administration of a low-dose electrical current to induce neuromodulation, which ultimately may act on downstream cognitive processing.

Objective

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of tDCS on executive functioning in geriatric inpatients with symptoms of depression and/or anxiety.

Design

Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial.

Setting

Specialized geriatric wards in a tertiary rehabilitation hospital.

Methods

Thirty older-aged adults were recruited, of which twenty completed ten-to-fifteen sessions of 1.5 mA anodal or sham tDCS over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Cognitive assessments were administered at baseline and following the tDCS protocol; analyses examined the effects of tDCS on cognitive performance between groups (anodal or sham tDCS).

Results

tDCS was found to increase inhibitory processing and cognitive flexibility in the anodal tDCS group, with significant changes on the Stroop test and Trail Making Test-Part B. No significant changes were observed on measures of attention or working memory.

Discussion

These results provide preliminary evidence that tDCS-induced neuromodulation may selectively improve cognitive processing in older adults with symptoms of depression and/or anxiety.

Clinical trials registration

www.clinicaltrials.gov, NCT04558177.

SUBMITTER: Figeys M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9641275 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

tDCS over the left prefrontal Cortex improves mental flexibility and inhibition in geriatric inpatients with symptoms of depression or anxiety: A pilot randomized controlled trial.

Figeys Mathieu M Villarey Sheryn S Leung Ada W S AWS Raso Jim J Buchan Steven S Kammerer Hubert H Rawani David D Kohls-Wiebe Megan M Kim Esther S ES

Frontiers in rehabilitation sciences 20221025

<h4>Background</h4>Patients with depression and/or anxiety are commonly seen in inpatient geriatric settings. Both disorders are associated with an increased risk of cognitive impairments, notably in executive functioning. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), a type of non-invasive brain stimulation, involves the administration of a low-dose electrical current to induce neuromodulation, which ultimately may act on downstream cognitive processing.<h4>Objective</h4>The purpose of this s ...[more]

PMID: 36386776

Similar Datasets

Project description:Anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), applied over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (lDLPFC), can produce significant effects on working memory (WM) performance and associated neurophysiological activity. However, results from previous studies are inconsistent and occasionally contradictory. This inconsistency may be attributed to methodological and individual differences during experiments. This study therefore investigated two hypotheses: (1) A multichannel-optimized montage was expected to be more effective than a classical bipolar montage, because of increased focality. (2) The subjects were expected to benefit differently from the stimulation depending on their initial task performance. In a sham-controlled crossover study, 24 healthy participants received bipolar, multichannel, and sham stimulation for 20 min in randomized order, targeting the lDLPFC while performing a 2-back WM task. After stimulation, electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded at rest and during 2-back and nontarget continuous performance task (CPT) performance. Bipolar and multichannel stimulations were both well tolerated and effectively blinded. We found no effect of stimulation on behavioral performance or neuronal oscillations comparing the classical bipolar or multichannel montage with sham stimulation. We did, however, find an interaction between stimulation and initial task performance. For multichannel stimulation, initially low-performing participants tended to improve their WM performance while initially high-performing participants tended to worsen their performance compared to sham stimulation. Both tDCS montages induced changes in neural oscillatory power, which correlated with baseline performance. The worse the participants' initial WM performance was, the more task-related theta power was induced by multichannel and bipolar stimulation. The same effect was observed for alpha power in the nontarget task following multichannel stimulation. Notably, we were not able to show a superiority of multichannel stimulation compared to bipolar stimulation. Still, comparing both montages with sham stimulation, multichannel stimulation led to stronger effects than bipolar stimulation. The current study highlights the importance of investigating different parameters with potential influence on tDCS effects in combination. Our results demonstrate how individual differences in cognitive performance and electrode montages influence effects of tDCS on neuropsychological performance. These findings support the idea of an individualized and optimized stimulation setting, potentially leading to increased tDCS effects.