Brain stimulation mitigates the vigilance decrement: a tDCS and EEG study

ROMÁN-CABALLERO, RAFAEL; MARTÍN-ARÉVALO, ELISA; BARTTFELD, PABLO; LUNA, FERNANDO GABRIEL; LUPIÁÑEZ, JUAN

Granada

Congreso; III Internati onal Congress of Psychobiology; 2019

Sociedad Española de Psicobiología

We used a recently developed task, which simultaneously measures executive (detection of infrequent but critical events) and arousal vigilance (sustenance of a tonic arousal level) to investigate its modulation by brain electrical stimulation. Using a High-Definition Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) procedure, we stimulated different brain regions over the right fronto-parietal attentional network. Participants (n= 90) were randomly assigned to one of three groups (frontal stimulation, parietal stimulation, and sham condition). All of them performed ? in combination with the tDCS protocol ? an attentional networks task (ANTI-Vea) suitable to measure both vigilance´s components together with three typical attentional functions: phasic alertness, orienting, and executive control. EEG was also measured during the first and the last block of trials. A Vigilance decrement was observed across time on task in the control (sham) group, for both arousal (increase in mean RT and variability) and executive vigilance (decrease in accuracy). Furthermore, an increase in alpha power was also observed in occipital electrodes in the last block of trials. Both the executive vigilance decrement and the increase in alpha power were nevertheless mitigated in the electrical stimulations groups. Possible implications of the observed results will be discussed.