title: Facilitative effects of bi-hemispheric tDCS in cognitive deficits of Parkinson disease patients.
abstract: Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder, primarily characterized by motor symptoms such as tremor, rigidity, bradykinesia, stiffness, slowness and impaired equilibrium. Although the motor symptoms have been the focus in PD, slight cognitive deficits are commonly found in non-demented and non-depressed PD patients, even in early stages of the disease, which have been linked to the subsequent development of pathological dementia. Thus, strongly reducing the quality of life (QoL). Both levodopa therapy and deep brain stimulation (DBS) have yield controversial results concerning the cognitive symptoms amelioration in PD patients. That does not seems to be the case with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), although better stimulation parameters are needed. Therefore we hypothesize that simultaneously delivering cathodal tDCS (or ctDCS), over the right prefrontal cortex delivered with anodal tDCS (or atDCS) to left prefrontal cortex could be potentially beneficial for PD patients, either by mechanisms of homeostatic plasticity and by increases in the extracellular dopamine levels over the striatum.
authors: Neuropsychophysiology Laboratory, CIPsi, School of Psychology (EPsi), University of Minho, Braga, Portugal. Electronic address: jorgel@psi.uminho.pt.
authors: Jorge
authors: J
authors: Leite
authors: Department of Counseling and Applied Educational Psychology, Bouvé College of Health Sciences, Northeastern University, Boston, USA; Neuropsychophysiology Laboratory, CIPsi, School of Psychology (EPsi), University of Minho, Braga, Portugal.
authors: Oscar F
authors: OF
authors: Gonçalves
authors: Neuropsychophysiology Laboratory, CIPsi, School of Psychology (EPsi), University of Minho, Braga, Portugal.
authors: Sandra
authors: S
authors: Carvalho
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003342:Corpus Striatum / Q000503:physiopathology; D004298:Dopamine / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000378:metabolism*; D004599:Electric Stimulation Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D006706:Homeostasis; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009048:Motor Skills; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000628:therapy*; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology; D011788:Quality of Life
chemical_list: D004298:Dopamine