Trait anxiety moderates the effects of tDCS over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) on creativity

Xiang, Shuoqi; Qi, Senqing; Li, Yangping; Wang, Luchun; Dai, David Yun; Hu, Weiping

doi:10.1016/j.paid.2021.110804

Cited by 14 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Individuals with high math anxiety showed a greater reduction over time in the NDE when stimulated at the right PPC, whereas no such effect was observed in the sham and other groups. Accordingly, our results extent previous observations of trait‐specific tDCS effects (Xiang et al., 2021) in which individuals with low trait anxiety had a stronger behavioral response to tDCS than individuals with high trait anxiety. In individuals with high mathematics anxiety, however, tDCS improved reaction times and stress (Sarkar et al., 2014).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Regional specificity of cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation effects on spatial–numerical associations: Comparison of four stimulation sites

Farshad,

Artemenko,

Cipora

et al. 2024

J of Neuroscience Research

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Neuromodulation with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is an increasingly popular research tool to experimentally manipulate cortical areas and probe their causal involvements in behavior, but its replicability and regional specificity are not clear. This registered report investigated cathodal tDCS effects on spatial–numerical associations (i.e., the SNARC effect), the numerical distance effect (NDE), and inhibitory control (i.e., stop‐signal reaction time; SSRT). Healthy adults (N = 160) were randomly assigned to one of five groups to receive sham tDCS or 1 mA cathodal tDCS to one of four stimulation sites (left/right prefrontal cortex [PFC], left/right posterior parietal cortex) with extracephalic return. We replicated that cathodal tDCS over the left PFC reduced the SNARC effect compared to sham tDCS and to tDCS over the left parietal cortex. However, neither NDE nor SSRT were modulated in the main analyses. Post hoc contrasts and exploratory analyses showed that cathodal tDCS over the right PFC had a time‐dependent effect by delayed practice‐related improvements in SSRT. Math anxiety moderated changes in the NDE in the groups receiving tDCS to the right parietal cortex. With few exceptions, the replicability and regional specificity of tDCS effects on behavior were weak and partially moderated by individual differences. Future research needs to characterize the parameter settings for effective neuromodulation.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Regional specificity of cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation effects on spatial–numerical associations: Comparison of four stimulation sites

Farshad,

Artemenko,

Cipora

et al. 2024

J of Neuroscience Research

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“…Few recent studies on the relationship between tDCS and creativity consistently found that the left DLPFC is connected to creative performance related to language reasoning, which proves the important role of the left DLPFC in the creative thinking process during language reasoning [ 21 , 24 , 46 , 47 , 48 ]. However, there is a lack of research on the role of the right DLPFC in creative thinking.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…The procedures for the two groups were named anonymously by these two codes; therefore, both participants and experimenters were blind to the type of intervention. A pair of rubber electrodes (5 × 5 cm 2 ) covered with a saline-soaked sponge was used, and the current level was set to 1.5 mA for safety reasons [ 21 , 27 ]. According to the 10−20 International EEG Electrode Placement System, the stimulating electrode was placed at F4 (right DLPFC) [ 28 , 29 ], and the reference electrode was placed on FP1 (contralateral orbitofrontal area) [ 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 ], as shown in Figure 1 .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Researchers believe that the left dorsolateral prefrontal region contributes to creative and logical complex verbal problem solving [ 20 ]. Compared with sham stimulation, when tDCS stimulation was applied to the bilateral DLPFC, the stimulation type of L+R− (left anodal and right cathodal) significantly improved the scores of the three dimensions of the AUT task (fluency, flexibility, and originality), while L−R+ had no significant effect [ 21 ]. In a study on the effects of tDCS stimulation of the anode DLPFC on intuition and analytical thinking, the anode tDCS of the right DLPFC was found to improve analytical judgment and decision making [ 18 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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tDCS Anodal Stimulation of the Right Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex Improves Creative Performance in Real-World Problem Solving

Guo

Luo

et al. 2023

Brain Sciences

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Brain regions associated with creativity is a focal point in research related to the field of cognitive neuroscience. Previous studies have paid more attention to the role of activation of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in creativity tasks, which are mostly abstract conceptual tasks, and less attention to real-world creativity tasks. The right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is involved in functions such as visuospatial processing, which may have a positive impact on innovative solutions to real-world problems. In this study, tDCS technology was used to explore the effect of anodal stimulation of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex on design creativity performance in a real-word problem-solving task related to product design. The experimental task comprised three stages, of which the first two were idea generation stages based on divergent thinking using text and graphics, respectively, whereas the third was the creative evaluation stage based on convergent thinking. Thirty-six design students were recruited to partake in the experiment. They were randomly assigned into anodal stimulation and sham stimulation groups. The results showed that anodal stimulation of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex produced a significant positive effect during the creative evaluation stage, promoting the usefulness of ideas (p = 0.009); thus, improving product creativity scores. However, there was no significant impact on the idea generation stage (p > 0.05), which is dominated by divergent thinking. The results suggest that activating the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex with tDCS can improve people’s performance in creative activities by promoting convergent thinking rather than divergent thinking. It also provides further evidence that the right hemisphere of the brain has an advantage in solving complex problems that require the participation of visuospatial information.

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“…However, Chrysikou et al, (2021) failed to observe the beneficial effect of left IFG inhibition with concurrent excitation of the right IFG for originality of responses in the same verbal divergent thinking task. Besides, (Cerruti and Schlaug, 2009) found that anode tDCS over the left dorsal prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) improves the accuracy of remote associates test across two experiments, but a recent study failed to replicate these findings with the same experimental design and task (Xiang et al, 2021). More recently, one critical review pointed out that creativity is a multifaceted construct and large heterogeneity in measurements, resulted in confusing and inconsistent findings on enhancing creative performance by employing tDCS (Lucchiari et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A meta-analysis of the effects of non-invasive brain stimulation on creative thinking

Chen¹,

Ding²,

Yang³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Enhancing creative problem solving with neuromodulatory approaches is gaining increased interest. However, inconsistent findings of the success in such approaches emphasize the need for a comprehensive overview of the effect of using non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) on creative thinking. The current meta-analysis aimed to investigate whether creative thinking can be improved by NIBS, especially through transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). 34 studies with 97 effect sizes (N = 1574 participants, 84 in excitatory stimulation, and 13 in inhibitory stimulation) were included. Our analyses showed that excitatory NIBS had a small but positive effect on creative performance for both divergent and convergent thinking, but inhibitory NIBS showed non significant effects. For tDCS studies, there was an excitatory effect via anodal tDCS over the left dorsal prefrontal cortex, and an inhibitory effect via cathodal tDCS over the left inferior frontal gyrus on creative thinking. Our study suggests brain stimulation may hold the key to unleash creativity and also highlights issues to be addressed in future research.

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Trait anxiety moderates the effects of tDCS over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) on creativity

Cited by 14 publications

References 36 publications

Regional specificity of cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation effects on spatial–numerical associations: Comparison of four stimulation sites

Regional specificity of cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation effects on spatial–numerical associations: Comparison of four stimulation sites

tDCS Anodal Stimulation of the Right Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex Improves Creative Performance in Real-World Problem Solving

A meta-analysis of the effects of non-invasive brain stimulation on creative thinking

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