title: Impact of transcranial direct current stimulation on attentional bias for threat: a proof-of-concept study among individuals with social anxiety disorder.
abstract: Cognitive models posit that social anxiety disorder (SAD) is associated with and maintained by attentional bias (AB) for social threat. However, over the last years, it has been suggested that AB in SAD may result from a decreased activation of the left prefrontal cortex, and particularly of its dorsolateral part (dlPFC). Accordingly, a transient increase of neural activity within the left dlPFC via non-invasive brain stimulation decreases AB in non-anxious control participants. Yet, none of these studies focused on SAD. This is especially unfortunate as SAD constitutes the main target for which a genuine reduction of AB may be most appropriate. In this experiment, we sought to investigate the causal influence of left dlPFC neuromodulation on AB among 19 female individuals with a DSM-5 diagnosis of SAD. We adopted a double-blind within-subject protocol in which we delivered a single-session of anodal versus sham transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) over the left dlPFC during the completion of a probe discrimination task assessing AB. Consistent with our hypothesis, participants demonstrated a significant decrease in AB during the anodal tDCS over the left DLPFC relative to the sham stimulation. These findings value tDCS as an innovative procedure to gain new insight into the underlying mechanisms of SAD.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.|Psychological Science Research Institute, Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
authors.forename: Alexandre
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Heeren
authors.affiliation: Psychological Science Research Institute, Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
authors.forename: Joël
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Billieux
authors.affiliation: Psychological Science Research Institute, Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
authors.forename: Pierre
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Philippot
authors.affiliation: Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Rudi
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: De Raedt
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Medical Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.|Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, Free University Brussels, Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: Chris
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Baeken
authors.affiliation: Psychological Science Research Institute, Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.|Institute of Neuroscience, Université Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium.|Department of Adult Psychiatry, Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc, Université Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: Philippe
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: de Timary
authors.affiliation: Psychological Science Research Institute, Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.|Institute of Neuroscience, Université Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: Pierre
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Maurage
authors.affiliation: Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.|Department of Psychiatry and Medical Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.|Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, University Hospital Brussel (UZ Brussel), Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: Marie-Anne
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Vanderhasselt
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology; D000070379:Attentional Bias / Q000502:physiology*; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000502:physiology; D004311:Double-Blind Method; D005239:Fear / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D000072861:Phobia, Social / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000628:therapy*; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology*; D065908:Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: attention bias modification; attentional bias; neuromodulation; prefrontal cortex; social anxiety disorder; transcranial direct current stimulation