The Causal Role of the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex in the Modification of Attentional Bias: Evidence from Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation

Effects of tDCS over the right DLPFC on attentional disengagement from positive and negative faces: An eye-tracking study

“…These results, although apparently contradictory with predictions from traditional neurocognitive models (e.g., Davidson, 1992), are congruent with recent findings pointing to a hemispheric lateralization of processes related to all emotional information rather than emotion-specific processes. Whereas previous studies using anodal tDCS over the left DLPFC have shown that such stimulation has effects on implementing attentional control for different emotional stimuli, irrespective of their valence (Clarke et al, 2014;Nitsche et al, 2012), our study is the first in demonstrating a general attentional control impairment for both positive (happy) and negative (disgust and sad) stimuli as a result of right DLPFC anodal stimulation. Furthermore, our results are also in line with previous research suggesting a direct action of anodal tDCS over the right DLPFC in the generation of deficient general attentional control (i.e., nonemotional cues; Rounis et al, 2006).…”

“…These findings speak against the traditional view on valence lateralization. A recent study of healthy individuals tested the effectiveness of an experimental procedure to modify the attentional inhibition of different emotional stimuli in combination with left DLPFC stimulation (Clarke, Browning, Hammond, Notebaert, & MacLeod, 2014). Results showed that participants receiving anodal tDCS in comparison to sham stimulation showed increases in the specific trained attentional inhibition pattern, irrespectively of its valence.…”

Attention bias modification for social anxiety: A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Indeed, neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that hightrait anxious individuals exhibit a reduced activation of the left dorsolateral part of the prefrontal cortex during tasks assessing such a top-down attention control (e.g., Bishop, 2009;Browning, Holmes, Murphy, Goodwin, & Harmer, 2010). Moreover, recent translational studies show that increasing the activity of this brain region by using neuromodulation may facilitate ABM efficiency (Clarke et al, 2014a;Heeren, Baeken, Vanderhasselt, Philippot, & De Raedt, 2015). Accordingly, if elevated trait anxiety reflects difficulty with top-down attention control, this may explain why SAD participants with lower levels of trait anxiety benefit more from ABM.…”

La stimulation transcrânienne à courant continu en psychiatrie

“…Ces résultats ont stimulé l'envie d'évaluer une telle démarche pour son application dans la remédiation de processus cognitifs jouant un rôle psychopathogène qui a été avéré en psychopathologie [33][34][35][36]. Bien que ces travaux soient encore aujourd'hui à un stade quasiembryonnaire, les premiers résultats s'avèrent particulièrement prometteurs [37][38][39]. Étant donné le faible coût de la tDCS, celle-ci pourrait rapidement renouveler l'exercice de l'intervention sur ces processus psychopathogènes [39].…”

“…Étant donné le faible coût de la tDCS, celle-ci pourrait rapidement renouveler l'exercice de l'intervention sur ces processus psychopathogènes [39]. Enfin, au-delà des implications cliniques possibles de la tDCS, la possibilité de manipuler expérimentalement l'excitabilité neuronale de régions cibles et d'en examiner les effets directs sur l'efficience de processus cognitifs psychopathogènes, devrait permettre, à terme, de dépasser les écueils rencontrés dans les recherches réalisées auparavant, comme l'utilisation de plans de recherche qui ne permettent pas l'inférence de relations causales [37][38][39][40]. ‡…”