Activation of inhibition: Diminishing impulsive behavior by direct current stimulation over the inferior frontal gyrus

A common feature of human existence is the ability to reverse decisions after they are made but before they are implemented. This cognitive control process, termed response inhibition, refers to the ability to inhibit an action once initiated and has been localized to the right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG) based on functional imaging and brain lesion studies. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a brain stimulation technique that can facilitate as well as impair cortical function. To explore whether response inhibition can be improved through rIFG electrical stimulation, we administered focal tDCS before subjects performed the stop signal task (SST), which measures response inhibition. Notably, activation of the rIFG by unilateral anodal stimulation significantly improved response inhibition, relative to a sham condition, whereas the same tDCS protocol did not affect response time in thegotrials of the SST and in a control task. Furthermore, the SST was not affected by tDCS at a control site, the right angular gyrus. Our results are the first demonstration of response inhibition improvement with brain stimulation over rIFG and further confirm the rIFG involvement in this task. Although this study was conducted in healthy subjects, present findings with anodal rIFG stimulation support the use of similar paradigms for the treatment of cognitive control impairments in pathological conditions

Right but not left angular gyrus modulates the metric component of the mental body representation: a tDCS study

The parietal lobes contribute to body-space representation. The present work aims at characterizing the functional role of the inferior parietal lobe in body-space representation and at studying the different roles of the angular gyrus in the right and left hemisphere. We conducted three separate transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) experiments using "tactile distance task" as an implicit measure of body representation. Whereas anodal tDCS on the right angular gyrus influences vocal reaction times (vRT) for stimuli delivered on the ipsilateral body parts without changes of accuracy, right tDCS improved both vRT and accuracy for tactile stimuli on the contralateral limbs. Sham or left parietal anodal tDCS had no effect. These evidences support the view that right parietal areas have a crucial role in the metric component of the body representation

An Observational Study of Musculoskeletal Pain Among Patients Receiving Bisphosphonate Therapy

OBJECTIVE: To seek evidence for the association of bisphosphonate use with diffuse musculoskeletal pain (MSKP) in a large national cohort, controlling for conditions associated with MSKP