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The Journal of Neuroscience, November 14, 2007, 27(46):12500-12505; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3283-07.2007

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Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
Diminishing Risk-Taking Behavior by Modulating Activity in the Prefrontal Cortex: A Direct Current Stimulation Study

Shirley Fecteau,¹ Daria Knoch,^2,3,4 Felipe Fregni,¹ Natasha Sultani,⁵ Paulo Boggio,⁵ and Alvaro Pascual-Leone^1,6

¹Berenson-Allen Center for Noninvasive Brain Stimulation, Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, ²Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, University of Zurich, 8006 Zurich, Switzerland, ³Department of Neurology, University Hospital Zurich, 8091 Zurich, Switzerland, ⁴Collegium Helveticum, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland, ⁵Núcleo de Neurociências, Centro de Ciências Biológicas e da Saúde, Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, 01302-907, Sao Paulo, Brazil, and ⁶Institut Guttmann de Neurorehabilitación, 08027 Barcelona, Spain

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

Studies have shown increased risk taking in healthy individuals after low-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, known to transiently suppress cortical excitability, over the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). It appears, therefore, plausible that differential modulation of DLPFC activity, increasing the right while decreasing the left, might lead to decreased risk taking, which could hold clinical relevance as excessively risky decision making is observed in clinical populations leading to deleterious consequences. The goal of the present study was to investigate whether risk-taking behaviors could be decreased using concurrent anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) of the right DLPFC, which allows upregulation of brain activity, with cathodal tDCS of the left DLPCF, which downregulates activity. Thirty-six healthy volunteers performed the risk task while they received either anodal over the right with cathodal over the left DLPFC, anodal over the left with cathodal over the right DLPFC, or sham stimulation. We hypothesized that right anodal/left cathodal would decrease risk-taking behavior compared with left anodal/right cathodal or sham stimulation. As predicted, during right anodal/left cathodal stimulation over the DLPFC, participants chose more often the safe prospect compared with the other groups. Moreover, these participants appeared to be insensitive to the reward associated with the prospects. These findings support the notion that the interhemispheric balance of activity across the DLPFCs is critical in decision-making behaviors. Most importantly, the observed suppression of risky behaviors suggests that populations with boundless risk-taking behaviors leading to negative real-life consequences, such as individuals with addiction, might benefit from such neuromodulation-based approaches.

Key words: tDCS; decision making; dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; inhibitory control; laterality; risk-taking behavior

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Received March 8, 2007; revised Aug. 8, 2007; accepted Aug. 13, 2007.

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

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