Perturbing fMRI brain dynamics using transcranial direct current stimulation

• DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118100
• Publication Date: 2021-04-29T23:34:18Z
• Authors: Yiheng Tu; Jin Cao; Seyhmus Guler; Thalia Chai-Zhang; Joan A. Camprodon; Mark Vangel; Randy L. Gollub; Darin D. Dougherty; Jian Kong
• Keywords: Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation; Orbitofrontal cortex; Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; Brain stimulation

The dynamic nature of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain activity and connectivity has drawn great interest in the past decade. Specific temporal properties fMRI dynamics, including metrics such as occurrence rate transitions, have been associated with cognition behaviors, indicating existence mechanism distruption neuropsychiatric disorders. development new methods to manipulate dynamics will advance our understanding these pathophysiological mechanisms from native observation experimental mechanistic manipulation. In present study, we applied repeated transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (rDLPFC) left orbitofrontal (lOFC), during multiple simultaneous tDCS-fMRI sessions 81 healthy participants assess modulatory effects stimulating target regions on dynamics. Using rDLPFC lOFC seeds, respectively, first identified two reoccurring co-activation patterns (CAPs) calculated their (e.g., transitions) before administering tDCS. spatial maps CAPs were different cognitive disease domains using meta-analytical decoding analysis. We then investigated how active tDCS compared sham modulation rates perturbations transitions between CAPs. found that by enhancing neuronal excitability lOFC, one CAP was significantly decreased while another increased 6 min stimulation. Furthermore, tDCS-associated changes persisted over subsequent testing (both before/after tDCS) across three consecutive days. Active could perturb a non-CAP state (when not activated), but within These results demonstrate feasibility modulating open possibilities for discovering targets can ensure propagation tDCS-induced excitability, which may facilitate treatments disorders altered