Comparison of transcranial brain stimulation approaches: prefrontal theta alternating current stimulation enhances working memory performance

INTRODUCTION: One of the most important cognitive functions in our everyday life is the working memory (WM). In several neuropsychiatric diseases such as ADHD or schizophrenia WM deficits can be observed, making it an attractive target for non-invasive brain stimulation methods like transcranial electrical stimulation (tES). However, the literature shows rather heterogeneous results of tES effects on WM performance. fMRI meta-analyses have identified a WM network including frontoparietal brain areas such as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the posterior parietal cortex (PPC). Neurophysiological studies revealed oscillatory activity in the theta band frequency range to be of crucial functional relevance for WM processes. Based on this, transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) in the theta frequency range targeting DLPFC and PPC in a spatially optimized way might further improve effects of tES on WM performance. METHODS: Sixteen healthy subjects were stimulated with varying stimulation settings on four different days in a counterbalanced within-subject design. These setups included the application of (1) tACS with a frequency of 5 Hz (theta frequency range) over the left DLPFC and (2) the right superior parietal cortex, (3) transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) of the DLPFC and (4) a sham stimulation condition during the online performance of a visual delayed-match-to-sample task with varying working memory load. We introduce a procedure to calculate an optimal tES model revealing optimized high-density setups for the present study for 3 cathodes and 1 anode and stimulation currents of 1.5 mA. RESULTS: A significant interaction effect of stimulation type and load condition on working memory capacity was found. This was reflected by a significant improvement of WM performance in the high load condition during tACS over the left DLPFC compared with sham stimulation, which was not the case for our parietal tACS or tDCS setup. DISCUSSION: Working memory performance can be improved with optimized high-definition tACS with a frequency of 5 Hz over the left DLPFC. The conception of different mechanisms underlying transcranial electrical stimulation with alternating and direct currents is supported by these results. Patients suffering from working memory impairments due to neuropsychiatric diseases might potentially benefit from this brain stimulation approach.