State-dependent effects of prefrontal repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation on emotional working memory.
BACKGROUND
A growing body of findings illustrates the importance of state-dependency in studies using brain stimulation.


OBJECTIVE
We aimed to investigate the effects of tDCS priming followed by rTMS applied over the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) on emotional working memory.


METHODS
In a randomized single-blind within-subjects design, participants performed an emotional 3-back task at baseline and after tDCS priming (anodal, cathodal) and subsequent low-frequency rTMS (active, sham) of the right DLPFC. Stimuli consisted of words related to the distinct emotion categories fear and anger as well as neutral words.


RESULTS
Task accuracy increased for fear-related words and decreased for neutral words across stimulation conditions. No general state-dependent effects of prefrontal rTMS on working memory were found. We further showed a detrimental effect of negative emotional content on working memory performance.


CONCLUSIONS
Our findings support a hemispheric lateralization of emotion processing by demonstrating that the withdrawal-related emotion fear is associated with the right DLPFC and contribute to clarifying the interaction between working memory and emotion.
Cluster of Excellence "Languages of Emotion", Freie Universitaet Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany; Department of Psychiatry, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Charité Berlin, 14050 Berlin, Germany; Dahlem Institute for Neuroimaging of Emotion, Freie Universitaet Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany. Electronic address: anne.weigand@fu-berlin.de.
Anne
A
Weigand
Aline
A
Richtermeier
Melanie
M
Feeser
Jia Shen
JS
Guo
Benny B
BB
Briesemeister
Simone
S
Grimm
Malek
M
Bajbouj
D000328:Adult; D004558:Electric Stimulation; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D016037:Single-Blind Method; D050781:Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation; D055815:Young Adult
Emotion; Frontal asymmetry; Working memory; rTMS; tDCS