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The Journal of Neuroscience, June 6, 2007, 27(23):6212-6218; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0314-07.2007

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Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
Activation of Prefrontal Cortex by Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Reduces Appetite for Risk during Ambiguous Decision Making

Shirley Fecteau,¹ Alvaro Pascual-Leone,¹ David H. Zald,² Paola Liguori,³ Hugo Théoret,⁴ Paulo S. Boggio,³ and Felipe Fregni¹

¹Berenson-Allen Center for Noninvasive Brain Stimulation, Department of Neurology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, ²Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37203, ³Mackenzie University, 05508 São Paulo, Brazil, and ⁴Université de Montréal and Hôpital Sainte-Justine, Montréal, Québec, Canada H3T 1C5

Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Felipe Fregni or Dr. Alvaro Pascual-Leone, Center for Noninvasive Brain Stimulation, Department of Neurology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, 330 Brookline Avenue KS 452, Boston, MA 02215. Email: ffregni{at}bidmc.harvard.edu or Email: apleone{at}bidmc.harvard.edu

As adult humans, we are continuously faced with decisions in which proper weighing of the risk involved is critical. Excessively risky or overly cautious decision making can both have disastrous real-world consequences. Weighing of risks and benefits toward decision making involves a complex neural network that includes the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), but its role remains unclear. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation studies have shown that disruption of the DLPFC increases risk-taking behavior. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) allows upregulation of activity in the DLPFC, and we predicted that it might promote more cautious decision making. Healthy participants received one of the following treatments while they performed the Balloon Analog Risk Task: (1) right anodal/left cathodal DLPFC tDCS, (2) left anodal/ right cathodal DLPFC tDCS, or (3) sham tDCS. This experiment revealed that participants receiving either one of the bilateral DLPFC tDCS strategies adopted a risk-averse response style. In a control experiment, we tested whether unilateral DLPFC stimulation (anodal tDCS over the right or left DLPFC with the cathodal electrode over the contralateral supraorbital area) was sufficient to decrease risk-taking behaviors. This experiment showed no difference in decision-making behaviors between the groups of unilateral DLPFC stimulation and sham stimulation. These findings extend the notion that DLPFC activity is critical for adaptive decision making, possibly by suppressing riskier responses. Anodal tDCS over DLPFC by itself did not significantly change risk-taking behaviors; however, when the contralateral DLPFC was modulated with cathodal tCDS, an important decrease in risk taking was observed. Also, the induced cautious decision-making behavior was observed only when activity of both DLPFCs was modulated. The ability to modify risk-taking behavior may be translated into therapeutic interventions for disorders such as drug abuse, overeating, or pathological gambling.

Key words: transcranial direct current stimulation; prefrontal cortex; balloon analog risk task; humans; decision making; risk

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Received Sept. 14, 2006; revised March 2, 2007; accepted March 9, 2007.

Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Felipe Fregni or Dr. Alvaro Pascual-Leone, Center for Noninvasive Brain Stimulation, Department of Neurology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, 330 Brookline Avenue KS 452, Boston, MA 02215. Email: ffregni{at}bidmc.harvard.edu or Email: apleone{at}bidmc.harvard.edu

This article has been cited by other articles:

				M. Plaza, P. Gatignol, H. Cohen, B. Berger, and H. Duffau A Discrete Area within the Left Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex Involved in Visual-Verbal Incongruence Judgment Cereb Cortex, June 1, 2008; 18(6): 1253 - 1259. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				S. Fecteau, D. Knoch, F. Fregni, N. Sultani, P. Boggio, and A. Pascual-Leone Diminishing Risk-Taking Behavior by Modulating Activity in the Prefrontal Cortex: A Direct Current Stimulation Study J. Neurosci., November 14, 2007; 27(46): 12500 - 12505. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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