tDCS-induced modulation of GABA concentration and dopamine release in the human brain: A combination study of magnetic resonance spectroscopy and positron emission tomography.

BACKGROUND: Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) hypothetically modulates cognitive functions by facilitating or inhibiting neuronal activities chiefly in the cerebral cortex. The effect of tDCS in the deeper brain region, the basal ganglia-cortical circuit, remains unknown. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the interaction between γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) concentrations and dopamine release following tDCS. METHOD: This study used a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind, crossover design. Seventeen healthy male subjects underwent active and sham tDCS (13 min twice at an interval of 20 min) with the anode placed at the left DLPFC and the cathode at the right DLPFC, followed by examinations with [11C]-raclopride positron emission topography (PET) and GABA-magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS). MRS voxels were set in the left DLPFC and bilateral striata. Paired t-tests and regression analyses were performed for PET and MRS parameters. RESULTS: MRS data analyses showed elevations in GABA in the left striatum along with moderate reductions in the right striatum and the left DLPFC after active tDCS. PET data analyses showed that reductions in [11C]-raclopride binding potentials (increase in dopamine release) in the right striatum were inversely correlated with those in the left striatum after active tDCS. GABA reductions in the left DLPFC positively correlated with elevations in GABA in the left striatum and with increases in right striatal dopamine release and negatively correlated with increases in left striatal dopamine release. CONCLUSION: The present results suggest that tDCS to the DLPFC modulates dopamine-GABA functions in the basal ganglia-cortical circuit.

Validation of brain-derived signals in near-infrared spectroscopy through multivoxel analysis of concurrent functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a convenient and safe brain-mapping tool. However, its inevitable confounding with hemodynamic responses outside the brain, especially in the frontotemporal head, has questioned its validity. Some researchers attempted to validate NIRS signals through concurrent measurements with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), but, counterintuitively, NIRS signals rarely correlate with local fMRI signals in NIRS channels, although both mapping techniques should measure the same hemoglobin concentration. Here, we tested a novel hypothesis that different voxels within the scalp and the brain tissues might have substantially different hemoglobin absorption rates of near-infrared light, which might differentially contribute to NIRS signals across channels. Therefore, we newly applied a multivariate approach, a partial least squares regression, to explain NIRS signals with multivoxel information from fMRI within the brain and soft tissues in the head. We concurrently obtained fMRI and NIRS signals in 9 healthy human subjects engaging in an n-back task. The multivariate fMRI model was quite successfully able to predict the NIRS signals by cross-validation (interclass correlation coefficient = ∼0.85). This result confirmed that fMRI and NIRS surely measure the same hemoglobin concentration. Additional application of Monte-Carlo permutation tests confirmed that the model surely reflects temporal and spatial hemodynamic information, not random noise. After this thorough validation, we calculated the ratios of the contributions of the brain and soft-tissue hemodynamics to the NIRS signals, and found that the contribution ratios were quite different across different NIRS channels in reality, presumably because of the structural complexity of the frontotemporal regions. Hum Brain Mapp 38:5274-5291, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Effect of instructive visual stimuli on neurofeedback training for motor imagery-based brain-computer interface.

Event-related desynchronization (ERD) of the electroencephalogram (EEG) from the motor cortex is associated with execution, observation, and mental imagery of motor tasks. Generation of ERD by motor imagery (MI) has been widely used for brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) linked to neuroprosthetics and other motor assistance devices. Control of MI-based BCIs can be acquired by neurofeedback training to reliably induce MI-associated ERD. To develop more effective training conditions, we investigated the effect of static and dynamic visual representations of target movements (a picture of forearms or a video clip of hand grasping movements) during the BCI neurofeedback training. After 4 consecutive training days, the group that performed MI while viewing the video showed significant improvement in generating MI-associated ERD compared with the group that viewed the static image. This result suggests that passively observing the target movement during MI would improve the associated mental imagery and enhance MI-based BCIs skills.

Modulation of event-related desynchronization during kinematic and kinetic hand movements.

BACKGROUND: Event-related desynchronization/synchronization (ERD/ERS) is a relative power decrease/increase of electroencephalogram (EEG) in a specific frequency band during physical motor execution and mental motor imagery, thus it is widely used for the brain-computer interface (BCI) purpose. However what the ERD really reflects and its frequency band specific role have not been agreed and are under investigation. Understanding the underlying mechanism which causes a significant ERD would be crucial to improve the reliability of the ERD-based BCI. We systematically investigated the relationship between conditions of actual repetitive hand movements and resulting ERD. METHODS: Eleven healthy young participants were asked to close/open their right hand repetitively at three different speeds (Hold, 1/3 Hz, and 1 Hz) and four distinct motor loads (0, 2, 10, and 15 kgf). In each condition, participants repeated 20 experimental trials, each of which consisted of rest (8-10 s), preparation (1 s) and task (6 s) periods. Under the Hold condition, participants were instructed to keep clenching their hand (i.e., isometric contraction) during the task period. Throughout the experiment, EEG signals were recorded from left and right motor areas for offline data analysis. We obtained time courses of EEG power spectrum to discuss the modulation of mu and beta-ERD/ERS due to the task conditions. RESULTS: We confirmed salient mu-ERD (8-13 Hz) and slightly weak beta-ERD (14-30 Hz) on both hemispheres during repetitive hand grasping movements. According to a 3 × 4 ANOVA (speed × motor load), both mu and beta-ERD during the task period were significantly weakened under the Hold condition, whereas no significant difference in the kinetics levels and interaction effect was observed. CONCLUSIONS: This study investigates the effect of changes in kinematics and kinetics on resulting ERD during repetitive hand grasping movements. The experimental results suggest that the strength of ERD may reflect the time differentiation of hand postures in motor planning process or the variation of proprioception resulting from hand movements, rather than the motor command generated in the down stream, which recruits a group of motor neurons.

Analysis of extrinsic and intrinsic factors affecting event related desynchronization production.

Recently there has been an increase in the number of stroke patients with motor paralysis. Appropriate re-afferent sensory feedback synchronized with a voluntary motor intention would be effective for promoting neural plasticity in the stroke rehabilitation. Therefore, BCI technology is considered to be a promising approach in the neuro-rehabilitation. To estimate human motor intention, an event-related desynchronization (ERD), a feature of electroencephalogram (EEG) evoked by motor execution or motor imagery is usually used. However, there exists various factors that affect ERD production, and its neural mechanism is still an open question. As a preliminary stage, we evaluate mutual effects of intrinsic (voluntary motor imagery) and extrinsic (visual and somatosensory stimuli) factors on the ERD production. Experimental results indicate that these three factors are not always additively interacting with each other and affecting the ERD production.