TY - JOUR
T1 - Differences in electric field strength between clinical and non-clinical populations induced by prefrontal tDCS
T2 - A cross-diagnostic, individual MRI-based modeling study
AU - Mizutani-Tiebel, Yuki
AU - Takahashi, Shun
AU - Karali, Temmuz
AU - Mezger, Eva
AU - Bulubas, Lucia
AU - Papazova, Irina
AU - Dechantsreiter, Esther
AU - Stoecklein, Sophia
AU - Papazov, Boris
AU - Thielscher, Axel
AU - Padberg, Frank
AU - Keeser, Daniel
N1 - Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - INTRODUCTION: Prefrontal cortex (PFC) regions are promising targets for therapeutic applications of non-invasive brain stimulation, e.g. transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), which has been proposed as a novel intervention for major depressive disorder (MDD) and negative symptoms of schizophrenia (SCZ). However, the effects of tDCS vary inter-individually, and dose-response relationships have not been established. Stimulation parameters are often tested in healthy subjects and transferred to clinical populations. The current study investigates the variability of individual MRI-based electric fields (e-fields) of standard bifrontal tDCS across individual subjects and diagnoses.METHOD: The study included 74 subjects, i.e. 25 patients with MDD, 24 patients with SCZ, and 25 healthy controls (HC). Individual e-fields of a common tDCS protocol (i.e. 2 mA stimulation intensity, bifrontal anode-F3/cathode-F4 montage) were modeled by two investigators using SimNIBS (2.0.1) based on structural MRI scans.RESULT: On a whole-brain level, the average e-field strength was significantly reduced in MDD and SCZ compared to HC, but MDD and SCZ did not differ significantly. Regions of interest (ROI) analysis for PFC subregions showed reduced e-fields in Sallet areas 8B and 9 for MDD and SCZ compared to HC, whereas there was again no difference between MDD and SCZ. Within groups, we generally observed high inter-individual variability of e-field intensities at a higher percentile of voxels.CONCLUSION: MRI-based e-field modeling revealed significant differences in e-field strengths between clinical and non-clinical populations in addition to a general inter-individual variability. These findings support the notion that dose-response relationships for tDCS cannot be simply transferred from healthy to clinical cohorts and need to be individually established for clinical groups. In this respect, MRI-based e-field modeling may serve as a proxy for individualized dosing.
AB - INTRODUCTION: Prefrontal cortex (PFC) regions are promising targets for therapeutic applications of non-invasive brain stimulation, e.g. transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), which has been proposed as a novel intervention for major depressive disorder (MDD) and negative symptoms of schizophrenia (SCZ). However, the effects of tDCS vary inter-individually, and dose-response relationships have not been established. Stimulation parameters are often tested in healthy subjects and transferred to clinical populations. The current study investigates the variability of individual MRI-based electric fields (e-fields) of standard bifrontal tDCS across individual subjects and diagnoses.METHOD: The study included 74 subjects, i.e. 25 patients with MDD, 24 patients with SCZ, and 25 healthy controls (HC). Individual e-fields of a common tDCS protocol (i.e. 2 mA stimulation intensity, bifrontal anode-F3/cathode-F4 montage) were modeled by two investigators using SimNIBS (2.0.1) based on structural MRI scans.RESULT: On a whole-brain level, the average e-field strength was significantly reduced in MDD and SCZ compared to HC, but MDD and SCZ did not differ significantly. Regions of interest (ROI) analysis for PFC subregions showed reduced e-fields in Sallet areas 8B and 9 for MDD and SCZ compared to HC, whereas there was again no difference between MDD and SCZ. Within groups, we generally observed high inter-individual variability of e-field intensities at a higher percentile of voxels.CONCLUSION: MRI-based e-field modeling revealed significant differences in e-field strengths between clinical and non-clinical populations in addition to a general inter-individual variability. These findings support the notion that dose-response relationships for tDCS cannot be simply transferred from healthy to clinical cohorts and need to be individually established for clinical groups. In this respect, MRI-based e-field modeling may serve as a proxy for individualized dosing.
KW - Brain
KW - Depressive Disorder, Major/therapy
KW - Humans
KW - Magnetic Resonance Imaging/methods
KW - Prefrontal Cortex/diagnostic imaging
KW - Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation/methods
KW - Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
KW - Prefrontal tDCS
KW - Electric field
KW - Schizophrenia
KW - Structural MRI
KW - Major depressive disorder
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85130167485&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.nicl.2022.103011
DO - 10.1016/j.nicl.2022.103011
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 35487132
SN - 2213-1582
VL - 34
SP - 1
EP - 13
JO - NeuroImage. Clinical
JF - NeuroImage. Clinical
M1 - 103011
ER -