title: Transcranial direct current stimulation to enhance cognition in euthymic bipolar disorder.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate the use of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) for enhancing working memory and sustained attention in euthymic patients with bipolar disorder.
  
  
  METHODS
  Fifteen patients with bipolar disorder received anodal left prefrontal tDCS with an extracephalic cathode (prefrontal condition), anodal left prefrontal and cathodal cerebellar tDCS (fronto-cerebellar condition), and sham tDCS given 'online' during performance on a working memory and sustained attention task in an intra-individual, cross-over, sham-controlled experimental design. Exploratory cluster analyses examined responders and non-responders for the different active tDCS conditions on both tasks.
  
  
  RESULTS
  For working memory, approximately one-third of patients in both active tDCS conditions showed performance improvement. For sustained attention, three of 15 patients showed performance improvement with prefrontal tDCS. Responders to active tDCS for working memory performed more poorly on the task during sham tDCS compared to non-responders.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  A single session of active prefrontal or fronto-cerebellar tDCS failed to improve working memory or sustained attention performance in euthymic patients with bipolar disorder. Several important considerations are discussed in relation to future studies investigating tDCS for enhancing cognition in patients with bipolar disorder.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychiatry, Black Dog Institute, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: Donel M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Martin
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore.
authors.forename: Herng-Nieng
authors.initials: HN
authors.lastname: Chan
authors.affiliation: School of Psychiatry, Black Dog Institute, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: Angelo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Alonzo
authors.affiliation: School of Psychiatry, Black Dog Institute, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: Melissa J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Green
authors.affiliation: School of Psychiatry, Black Dog Institute, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: Philip B
authors.initials: PB
authors.lastname: Mitchell
authors.affiliation: School of Psychiatry, Black Dog Institute, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: Colleen K
authors.initials: CK
authors.lastname: Loo
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D001714:Bipolar Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy; D002531:Cerebellum / Q000503:physiopathology; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D065908:Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation / Q000379:methods*; D016896:Treatment Outcome
keywords: bipolar disorder; sustained attention; transcranial direct current stimulation; working memory