title: Effects of five daily high-frequency rTMS on Stroop task performance in aging individuals.
abstract: Previous evidence suggests that high-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (HF-rTMS) improves inhibitory control in healthy young adults. Little is known as to whether HF-rTMS would show similar facilitation effects in older adults undergoing normal aging. We recruited 16 healthy elderly adults and randomly assigned them to either a 10 Hz HF-rTMS or sham stimulation group. Five daily stimulation sessions over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex were given to each participant. Changes in inhibitory control were assessed using a modified Stroop task. Participants performed the Stroop task twice, 1 day before and after the five daily stimulations. We found that participants in the active HF-rTMS stimulation group showed improved performance in reaction time during incongruent trials (i.e. those with distracting information) after HF-rTMS treatment compared with pre-treatment trials. To the best of our knowledge, this study is one of the first studies demonstrating that daily HF-rTMS can improve attentional control in normally aging individuals.
authors.affiliation: Department of Brain and Cognitive Engineering, Korea University, South Korea. sangheekim.ku@gmail.com
authors.forename: Sang Hee
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Hyun Jung
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Han
authors.forename: Hyeon Min
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Ahn
authors.forename: Shin Ah
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Sang Eun
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Kim
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D057190:Stroop Test; D050781:Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation