Left prefrontal transcranial direct-current stimulation reduces symptom-severity and acutely enhances working memory in schizophrenia

Meiron, Oded; David, Jonathan; Yaniv, Asaf

doi:10.1016/j.neulet.2021.135912

Cited by 10 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Interventions that modulate MMN latencies may improve the reactivity of modality-specific association cortex networks, and by doing so may facilitate coherent verbal WM representation in SZ patients prior to goal-directed responses [8]. In support, recent findings revealed that left DLPFC transcranial direct stimulation (tDCS) add-on treatment in chronic SZ patients significantly alleviated symptom severity versus sham stimulation and acutely improved verbal WM performance versus baseline WM performance [5]. Importantly, in…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%

“…Schizophrenia (SZ) is a neurodevelopmental disorder involving neurophysiological abnormalities, a complex and heterogeneous set of positive and negative symptoms, cognitive impairments, and pervasive dysexecutive behaviors directly associated with dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) hypofunction [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. Negative symptoms, which include dysexecutive behaviors (e.g., emotional withdrawal, difficulty in abstract thinking) may result from executive attention (EA) deficits that disrupt the ability for coherent “reality monitoring” linked to DLPFC dysfunction and poor verbal working memory (WM) performance [ 2 , 4 , 5 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, it is hypothesized that hypoactive domain-general information processing within heteromodal DLPFC mechanisms is modulated by abnormal early sensory excitability [ 2 , 7 ]. However, in highly demanding executive WM tasks [ 2 , 5 , 9 ], SZ patients may be forced to rely on insufficient prefrontal inhibition to suppress irrelevant early sensory excitability when attempting to activate relevant auditory cortex WM storage networks [ 9 , 18 ]. Hence, under certain cognitively challenging conditions, slower MMN amplitude latencies, not smaller MNN amplitudes, may underlie slower and less accurate verbal WM responses in SZ versus healthy controls.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To clarify the relationship between top-down EA responses and bottom-up pre-attentive auditory excitability in SZ versus HC, we proposed utilizing a modified EA task [ 5 ] that requires a pronounced involvement of DLPFC-mediated domain-general WM storage (i.e., spatial-verbal memory storage) in interference-rich conditions that impose multiple sources of interferences during verbal memory retrieval [ 2 , 19 ]. The EA task requires parallel top-down prefrontal functional inhibition of irrelevant, recently encoded verbal WM items.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The EA task requires parallel top-down prefrontal functional inhibition of irrelevant, recently encoded verbal WM items. Thus, the current investigation utilized an “interference-rich” executive WM paradigm [ 2 , 5 , 9 ] to putatively support the idea that, during executive WM conditions requiring increased prefrontal cortex functional inhibition of early modality-specific auditory information [ 10 ], slower MMN peak-amplitude latencies will be related to efficient verbal WM responses (i.e., higher accuracy), particularly in schizophrenia patients.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Early Auditory Processing Predicts Efficient Working Memory Functioning in Schizophrenia

2022

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Early auditory processing (EAP) deficits have been consistently documented in individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia (SZ). However, a relationship between EAP and executive attention has not been confirmed in SZ versus healthy controls (HC). The current study aimed to demonstrate that unlike HC, in SZ patients, auditory change-detection event-related potentials (ERPs) are significantly associated with executive working memory (WM) functioning. Additionally, correlational analyses investigated the relationships between patients’ auditory ERPs, WM performance, and schizophrenia symptom severity scores. We examined verbal WM accuracy associated with “executive-control” prefrontal cortex mechanisms and EAP ERPs under midline prefrontal electrodes in 12 SZ patients versus 12 demographically matched HC. Mismatch negativity (MMN) amplitudes and latencies in SZ patients were not significantly different from HC, however, their verbal WM performance was significantly impaired versus HC. Importantly, prolonged MMN latencies in the SZ group were correlated with better WM accuracy. In the HC group, WM accuracy was unrelated to MMN latencies. Patients’ MMN parameters were unrelated to schizophrenia symptom-domain severity. However, patients’ WM RTs and accuracy were significantly related to illness severity and negative symptom severity, respectively. Therefore, inefficient sensory excitation related to EAP timing may underlie poor executive verbal WM functioning and might indirectly exacerbate the severity of negative symptoms in SZ. Treatments targeting prefrontal cortex dysfunction in schizophrenia are discussed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%