ISSN 1671-3710
CN 11-4766/R
主办:中国科学院心理研究所
出版:科学出版社

心理科学进展 ›› 2022, Vol. 30 ›› Issue (9): 2034-2052.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.02034

• 研究前沿 • 上一篇    下一篇

经颅直流电刺激对健康人群反应抑制的影响

郭志华, 卢宏亮, 黄鹏, 朱霞()   

  1. 空军军医大学军事医学心理学系, 西安 710032
  • 收稿日期:2021-12-01 出版日期:2022-09-15 发布日期:2022-07-21
  • 通讯作者: 朱霞 E-mail:zhuxia@fmmu.edu.cn
  • 基金资助:
    军队“十三五”重大项目(AWS17J012)

Effects of transcranial direct current stimulation on response inhibition in healthy people

GUO Zhi-Hua, LU Hong-Liang, HUANG Peng, ZHU Xia()   

  1. Department of Military Medical Psychology, Air Force Medical University, Xi'an 710032, China
  • Received:2021-12-01 Online:2022-09-15 Published:2022-07-21
  • Contact: ZHU Xia E-mail:zhuxia@fmmu.edu.cn

摘要:

反应抑制是指抑制不恰当的或不符合当前需要的行为的能力, 研究表明反应抑制主要与额下回、背外侧前额叶和前辅助运动区的功能有关。经颅直流电刺激(tDCS)是一种非侵入式脑刺激技术, 近年来对健康人群使用tDCS刺激相应脑区从而影响反应抑制功能的研究日益增多, 但主要研究结果不一致。阐明tDCS影响反应抑制具体的神经机制、减少tDCS研究的异质性、探索更有效的tDCS刺激方式和确定tDCS效果的年龄依赖性差异已成为目前亟待解决的问题。

关键词: 反应抑制, 经颅直流电刺激, 额下回, 背外侧前额叶, 前辅助运动区, 停止信号任务, go/nogo任务

Abstract:

Response inhibition refers to the ability to inhibit inappropriate or irrelevant actions so that one can make flexible and goal-directed behavioral responses based on environmental changes. Response inhibition is an essential component of cognitive ability. It is critical for the executive control of behavior in healthy individuals and a fundamental cognitive ability required for people to function properly. Previous studies have shown that response inhibition is mainly related to the functions of the right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG), the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), and the pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA). An increasing number of studies have used transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to modulate the activities of these brain regions, thereby affecting response inhibition. This review examined existing studies concerning the modulatory effects of tDCS targeting relevant brain regions on response inhibition in healthy participants, summarized the parameters of tDCS used in these studies and their main behavioral findings, and pointed out the shortcomings of previous studies and the future research directions of response inhibition enhancement by tDCS.

The neural mechanism of tDCS modulating response inhibition has yet to be clarified, mainly for the following two reasons: First, efforts are still needed to clarify the neural circuit of response inhibition itself, especially the time process of each brain region in the circuit. Second, the key brain region for improving response inhibition (i.e., the brain region that most greatly affects response stimulation after being stimulated) has not been confirmed yet. Solving these two problems can provide a basis for a better understanding and application of tDCS in response inhibition enhancement. This review also provides some insights on how to solve these problems. Currently, a majority of studies focus on healthy young adults, but have neglected the needs of the elderly and the children for enhanced response inhibition. Previous studies have shown that the effects of tDCS on response inhibition are age-dependent. Considering the age-related differences in physiological characteristics (especially brain anatomy characteristics), targeted studies should be conducted in the future to investigate the age-dependent effects of tDCS on response inhibition enhancement, so as to better use tDCS in healthy people of different ages.

Altogether, tDCS is an effective method to improve the ability of response inhibition, but the outcomes of previous studies are heterogeneous. Most studies have found that anodal tDCS can improve response inhibition; however, some studies have obtained inconsistent results. This review assumed that such inconsistency can be explained by three categories of factors, that is, individual differences (genetics, personality, baseline performance, etc.), stimulation parameters (current intensity, electrode placement, electrode size, duration, etc.), and behavioral tasks (difficulty, analytical methods, etc.). We have put forward valuable suggestions on how to control the effects of these factors, so that future research can introduce more standardized designs to reduce the heterogeneity of related studies.

Finally, in order to further investigate how to use tDCS to improve response inhibition more efficiently, this review proposed several directions for future research. First, existing studies are mostly based on conventional tDCS. Future research should actively embrace high-definition tDCS (HD-tDCS), as HD-tDCS has higher spatial resolution than conventional tDCS and can produce more prominent behavioral or neurophysiological effects and obtain results with higher reliability and validity. Second, few studies have explored the combination of tDCS with cognitive training of response inhibition. It is worthwhile to further clarify the effects of this protocol on response inhibition enhancement. Third, the effects of different stimulation patterns need to be explored, such as multisession repeated stimulation, combination of tDCS with other stimulation methods, and multitarget stimulation over multiple brain regions.

Key words: response inhibition, tDCS, IFG, DLPFC, pre-SMA, stop signal task, go/nogo task

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