title: Transcranial direct current stimulation of the prefrontal cortex increases attention to visual target stimuli.
abstract: Both functional imaging or EEG studies and studies including neurological patients found the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dLPFC) to be an important brain area for the processing of emotion and attention. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether emotion and attention can be modulated through bilateral transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) of the dLPFC. Therefore, we measured electroencephalographic occipital (early posterior negativity, EPN) and parietal ERPs (late positive potential, LPP) during an emotional picture viewing paradigm with an additional attentional instruction while applying bilateral anodal and cathodal tDC-stimulation to the left and right dLPFC. Beyond the well-known emotion and attention effects for both EPN and LPP, we found that left cathodal/right anodal tDCS leads to increased LPP amplitudes to target stimuli. In contrast to our hypothesis bilateral tDCS over the dLPFC did not influence emotional processing.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, University Clinic Würzburg, University of Würzburg, Füchsleinstr. 15, 97080, Würzburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Nina
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Vierheilig
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mühlberger
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, University Clinic Würzburg, University of Würzburg, Füchsleinstr. 15, 97080, Würzburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Polak
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, University Clinic Würzburg, University of Würzburg, Füchsleinstr. 15, 97080, Würzburg, Germany. herrmann_m@klinik.uni-wuerzburg.de.
authors.forename: Martin J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Herrmann
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods*; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D065908:Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation / Q000379:methods*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Attention; Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; Early posterior negativity; Emotion; tDCS