Project R-5403

Optimizing the efficacy of transcranial direct current stimulation on cortical neuroplasticity based on a neurovascular coupling model (Research)

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) induces polarity-specific enduring alterations of cortical excitability, and activity. Cortical excitability can be monitored in a limited set of cortical areas in the human brain, to explore the effects of tDCS. For exploring tDCS-induced cortical activity alterations, only indirect measures, such as electroencephalography (EEG), and functional magnetic resonance tomography (fMRI) are available. The latter are however possibly contaminated by effects of tDCS on cortical oscillations and vasodilatation. In the first part of the study, we aim to explore the association between tDCS-induced excitability and activity alterations, obtained by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), EEG, and fMRI, to identify the parameter optimally suited to monitor tDCS-induced cortical activity alterations for the model of the human motor cortex. In the second part, we compare the findings from our derived model of stimulation parameters and cortical alterations to compare the "optimized" protocol with the classical protocol. In the last part, we aim to functionally validate our model with several motor tasks. Obtaining an optimized model which is more effective than currently available is important because tDCS is increasingly applied to alter cognitive processes in healthy humans and clinical symptoms in neurodegenerative diseases.

01 May 2014 - 30 September 2020