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bioRxiv · 10.1101/744987

Repeated noninvasive stimulation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex reveals cumulative amplification of pleasant compared to unpleasant scene processing: a single subject pilot study

Winker, C.·Rehbein, M. A.·Sabatinelli, D.·Junghoefer, M.
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Abstract

The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) is a major hub of the reward system and has been shown to activate specifically in response to pleasant / rewarding stimuli. Previous studies demonstrate enhanced pleasant cue reactivity after single applications of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to the vmPFC. Here we present a pilot case study in which we assess the cumulative impact of multiple consecutive vmPFC-tDCS sessions on the processing of visual emotional stimuli in an event-related MEG recording design. The results point to stable modulation of increased positivity biases (pleasant > unpleasant stimulus signal strength) after excitatory vmPFC stimulation and a reversed pattern (pleasant < unpleasant) after inhibitory stimulation across five consecutive tDCS sessions. Moreover, cumulative effects of these emotional bias modulations were observable for several source-localized spatio-temporal clusters, suggesting an increase in modulatory efficiency by repeated tDCS sessions. This pilot study provides evidence for improvements in the effectiveness and utility of a novel tDCS paradigm in the context of emotional processing.

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Winker, C., Rehbein, M. A., Sabatinelli, D., Junghoefer, M.. 2019-08-22. Repeated noninvasive stimulation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex reveals cumulative amplification of pleasant compared to unpleasant scene processing: a single subject pilot study. https://doi.org/10.1101/744987

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