Functional effects of bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex modulation during sequential decision-making: a functional near-infrared spectroscopy study with offline transcranial direct current stimulation

  • The ability to learn sequential contingencies of actions for predicting future outcomes is indispensable for flexible behavior in many daily decision-making contexts. It remains open whether such ability may be enhanced by transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). The present study combined tDCS with functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to investigate potential tDCS-induced effects on sequential decision-making and the neural mechanisms underlying such modulations. Offline tDCS and sham stimulation were applied over the left and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) in young male adults (N = 29, mean age = 23.4 years, SD = 3.2) in a double-blind between-subject design using a three-state Markov decision task. The results showed (i) an enhanced dlPFC hemodynamic response during the acquisition of sequential state transitions that is consistent with the findings from a previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study; (ii) a tDCS-induced increase of the hemodynamic response in the dlPFC, but without accompanying performance-enhancing effects at the behavioral level; and (iii) a greater tDCS-induced upregulation of hemodynamic responses in the delayed reward condition that seems to be associated with faster decision speed. Taken together, these findings provide empirical evidence for fNIRS as a suitable method for investigating hemodynamic correlates of sequential decision-making as well as functional brain correlates underlying tDCS-induced modulation. Future research with larger sample sizes for carrying out subgroup analysis is necessary in order to decipher interindividual differences in tDCS-induced effects on sequential decision-making process at the behavioral and brain levels.

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Metadaten
Author:Iryna SchommartzORCiDGND, Annika Dix, Susanne Passow, Shu-Chen Li
URN:urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-577503
DOI:https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2020.605190
ISSN:1662-5161
Parent Title (German):Frontiers in human neuroscience
Publisher:Frontiers Media
Place of publication:Lausanne
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Date of Publication (online):2021/02/03
Date of first Publication:2021/02/03
Publishing Institution:Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg
Release Date:2021/02/04
Tag:DLPFC; bilateral tDCS; fNIRS; sequential decision-making; three-stage Markov task
Volume:14
Issue:Article 605190
Page Number:22
HeBIS-PPN:477471846
Institutes:Psychologie und Sportwissenschaften / Psychologie
Dewey Decimal Classification:1 Philosophie und Psychologie / 15 Psychologie / 150 Psychologie
6 Technik, Medizin, angewandte Wissenschaften / 61 Medizin und Gesundheit / 610 Medizin und Gesundheit
Sammlungen:Universitätspublikationen
Open-Access-Publikationsfonds:Medizin
Licence (German):License LogoCreative Commons - Namensnennung 4.0