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tACS Phase Locking of Frontal Midline Theta Oscillations Disrupts Working Memory Performance

Background: Frontal midline theta (FMT) oscillations (4–8 Hz) are strongly related to cognitive and executive control during mental tasks such as memory processing, arithmetic problem solving or sustained attention. While maintenance of temporal order information during a working memory (WM) task wa...

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Autores principales: Chander, Bankim S., Witkowski, Matthias, Braun, Christoph, Robinson, Stephen E., Born, Jan, Cohen, Leonardo G., Birbaumer, Niels, Soekadar, Surjo R.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4858529/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27199669
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fncel.2016.00120
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author Chander, Bankim S.
Witkowski, Matthias
Braun, Christoph
Robinson, Stephen E.
Born, Jan
Cohen, Leonardo G.
Birbaumer, Niels
Soekadar, Surjo R.
author_facet Chander, Bankim S.
Witkowski, Matthias
Braun, Christoph
Robinson, Stephen E.
Born, Jan
Cohen, Leonardo G.
Birbaumer, Niels
Soekadar, Surjo R.
author_sort Chander, Bankim S.
collection PubMed
description Background: Frontal midline theta (FMT) oscillations (4–8 Hz) are strongly related to cognitive and executive control during mental tasks such as memory processing, arithmetic problem solving or sustained attention. While maintenance of temporal order information during a working memory (WM) task was recently linked to FMT phase, a positive correlation between FMT power, WM demand and WM performance was shown. However, the relationship between these measures is not well understood, and it is unknown whether purposeful FMT phase manipulation during a WM task impacts FMT power and WM performance. Here we present evidence that FMT phase manipulation mediated by transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) can block WM demand-related FMT power increase (FMTΔpower) and disrupt normal WM performance. Methods: Twenty healthy volunteers were assigned to one of two groups (group A, group B) and performed a 2-back task across a baseline block (block 1) and an intervention block (block 2) while 275-sensor magnetoencephalography (MEG) was recorded. After no stimulation was applied during block 1, participants in group A received tACS oscillating at their individual FMT frequency over the prefrontal cortex (PFC) while group B received sham stimulation during block 2. After assessing and mapping phase locking values (PLV) between the tACS signal and brain oscillatory activity across the whole brain, FMT power and WM performance were assessed and compared between blocks and groups. Results: During block 2 of group A but not B, FMT oscillations showed increased PLV across task-related cortical areas underneath the frontal tACS electrode. While WM task-related FMTΔpower and WM performance were comparable across groups in block 1, tACS resulted in lower FMTΔpower and WM performance compared to sham stimulation in block 2. Conclusion: tACS-related manipulation of FMT phase can disrupt WM performance and influence WM task-related FMTΔpower. This finding may have important implications for the treatment of brain disorders such as depression and attention deficit disorder associated with abnormal regulation of FMT activity or disorders characterized by dysfunctional coupling of brain activity, e.g., epilepsy, Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease (AD/PD).
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spelling pubmed-48585292016-05-19 tACS Phase Locking of Frontal Midline Theta Oscillations Disrupts Working Memory Performance Chander, Bankim S. Witkowski, Matthias Braun, Christoph Robinson, Stephen E. Born, Jan Cohen, Leonardo G. Birbaumer, Niels Soekadar, Surjo R. Front Cell Neurosci Neuroscience Background: Frontal midline theta (FMT) oscillations (4–8 Hz) are strongly related to cognitive and executive control during mental tasks such as memory processing, arithmetic problem solving or sustained attention. While maintenance of temporal order information during a working memory (WM) task was recently linked to FMT phase, a positive correlation between FMT power, WM demand and WM performance was shown. However, the relationship between these measures is not well understood, and it is unknown whether purposeful FMT phase manipulation during a WM task impacts FMT power and WM performance. Here we present evidence that FMT phase manipulation mediated by transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) can block WM demand-related FMT power increase (FMTΔpower) and disrupt normal WM performance. Methods: Twenty healthy volunteers were assigned to one of two groups (group A, group B) and performed a 2-back task across a baseline block (block 1) and an intervention block (block 2) while 275-sensor magnetoencephalography (MEG) was recorded. After no stimulation was applied during block 1, participants in group A received tACS oscillating at their individual FMT frequency over the prefrontal cortex (PFC) while group B received sham stimulation during block 2. After assessing and mapping phase locking values (PLV) between the tACS signal and brain oscillatory activity across the whole brain, FMT power and WM performance were assessed and compared between blocks and groups. Results: During block 2 of group A but not B, FMT oscillations showed increased PLV across task-related cortical areas underneath the frontal tACS electrode. While WM task-related FMTΔpower and WM performance were comparable across groups in block 1, tACS resulted in lower FMTΔpower and WM performance compared to sham stimulation in block 2. Conclusion: tACS-related manipulation of FMT phase can disrupt WM performance and influence WM task-related FMTΔpower. This finding may have important implications for the treatment of brain disorders such as depression and attention deficit disorder associated with abnormal regulation of FMT activity or disorders characterized by dysfunctional coupling of brain activity, e.g., epilepsy, Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease (AD/PD). Frontiers Media S.A. 2016-05-06 /pmc/articles/PMC4858529/ /pubmed/27199669 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fncel.2016.00120 Text en Copyright © 2016 Chander, Witkowski, Braun, Robinson, Born, Cohen, Birbaumer and Soekadar. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution and reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Chander, Bankim S.
Witkowski, Matthias
Braun, Christoph
Robinson, Stephen E.
Born, Jan
Cohen, Leonardo G.
Birbaumer, Niels
Soekadar, Surjo R.
tACS Phase Locking of Frontal Midline Theta Oscillations Disrupts Working Memory Performance
title tACS Phase Locking of Frontal Midline Theta Oscillations Disrupts Working Memory Performance
title_full tACS Phase Locking of Frontal Midline Theta Oscillations Disrupts Working Memory Performance
title_fullStr tACS Phase Locking of Frontal Midline Theta Oscillations Disrupts Working Memory Performance
title_full_unstemmed tACS Phase Locking of Frontal Midline Theta Oscillations Disrupts Working Memory Performance
title_short tACS Phase Locking of Frontal Midline Theta Oscillations Disrupts Working Memory Performance
title_sort tacs phase locking of frontal midline theta oscillations disrupts working memory performance
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4858529/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27199669
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fncel.2016.00120
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