Cargando…

Cathodal Transcranial Direct-Current Stimulation Selectively Decreases Impulsivity after Traumatic Brain Injury in Rats

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) often results in chronic psychiatric-like symptoms. In a condition with few therapeutic options, neuromodulation has emerged as a promising potential treatment avenue for these individuals. The goal of the current study was to determine if transcranial direct-current sti...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Martens, Kris M., Pechacek, Kristen M., Modrak, Cassandra G., Milleson, Virginia J., Zhu, Binxing, Vonder Haar, Cole
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6744944/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31072218
http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/neu.2019.6470
Descripción
Sumario:Traumatic brain injury (TBI) often results in chronic psychiatric-like symptoms. In a condition with few therapeutic options, neuromodulation has emerged as a promising potential treatment avenue for these individuals. The goal of the current study was to determine if transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) could treat deficits of impulsivity and attention in rats. This could then be used as a model to investigate treatment parameters and the mechanism of action underlying therapeutic effects. Rats were trained on a task to measure attention and motor impulsivity (five-choice serial reaction time task), then given a frontal, controlled cortical impact injury. After rats recovered to a new baseline, tDCS (cathodal, 10 min, 800 μA) was delivered daily prior to testing in a counterbalanced, cross-over design. Treatment with tDCS selectively reduced impulsivity in the TBI group, and the greatest recovery occurred in the rats with the largest deficits. With these data, we have established a rat model for studying the effects of tDCS on psychiatric-like dysfunction. More research is needed to determine the mechanism of action by which tDCS-related gains occur.