Abstract
Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a non-invasive technique for brain stimulation capable of modulating brain excitability. Although beneficial effects of tDCS have been shown, the underlying brain mechanisms have not been described. In the present study, we aim to investigate the effects of tDCS on EEG-based functional connectivity, through a partial directed coherence (PDC) analysis, which is a frequency-domain metric that provides information about directionality in the interaction between signals recorded at different channels. The tDCS montage used in our study, was focused on the lower limbs and it was composed of two anodes and one cathode. A single-blind study was carried out, where eight healthy subjects were randomly separated into two groups: sham and active tDCS. Results showed that, for the active tDCS group, the central EEG electrodes Cz, C3 and C4 turned out to be highly connected within alpha and beta frequency bands. On the contrary, the sham group presented a tendency to be more random at its functional connections.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Gandiga, P.C., Hummel, F.C., Cohen, L.G.: Transcranial DC stimulation (tDCS): a tool for double-blind sham-controlled clinical studies in brain stimulation. Clin. Neurophysiol. 117(4), 845–850 (2006)
Brunoni, A.R., et al.: Clinical research with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS): challenges and future directions. Brain Stimul. 5(3), 175–195 (2012)
Nitsche, M.A., Paulus, W.: Excitability changes induced in the human motor cortex by weak transcranial direct current stimulation. J. Physiol. 527(3), 633–639 (2000)
Angulo-Sherman, I.N., Rodríguez-Ugarte, M., Sciacca, N., Iáñez, E., Azorín, J.M.: Effect of tDCS stimulation of motor cortex and cerebellum on EEG classification of motor imagery and sensorimotor band power. J. Neuroeng. Rehabil. 14(1), 31 (2017)
Matsumoto, J., Fujiwara, T., Takahashi, O., Liu, M., Kimura, A., Ushiba, J.: Modulation of mu rhythm desynchronization during motor imagery by transcranial direct current stimulation. J. Neuroeng. Rehabil. 7(1), 27 (2010)
Reis, J., Fritsch, B.: Modulation of motor performance and motor learning by transcranial direct current stimulation. Curr. Opin. Neurol. 24(6), 590–596 (2011)
Lee, S.J., Chun, M.H.: Combination transcranial direct current stimulation and virtual reality therapy for upper extremity training in patients with subacute stroke. Arch. Phys. Med. Rehabil. 95(3), 431–438 (2014)
Butler, A.J., Shuster, M., O’hara, E., Hurley, K., Middlebrooks, D., Guilkey, K.: A meta-analysis of the efficacy of anodal transcranial direct current stimulation for upper limb motor recovery in stroke survivors. JJ. Hand Ther. 26(2), 162–171 (2013)
Kim, D.Y., et al.: Effect of transcranial direct current stimulation on motor recovery in patients with subacute stroke. Am. J. Phys. Med. Rehabil. 89(11), 879–886 (2010)
Foerster, Á., Dutta, A., Kuo, M.F., Paulus, W., Nitsche, M.A.: Effects of anodal transcranial direct current stimulation over lower limb primary motor cortex on motor learning in healthy individuals. Eur. J. Neurosci. 47(7), 779–789 (2018)
Fernandez, L., et al.: Cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to the right cerebellar hemisphere affects motor adaptation during gait. Cerebellum 16(1), 168–177 (2017)
Rodriguez-Ugarte, M., Iáñez, E., Ortiz-Garcia, M., Azorín, J.M.: Effects of tDCS on real-time BCI detection of pedaling motor imagery. Sensors 18(4), 1136 (2018)
Bakker, M., De Lange, F., Stevens, J., Toni, I., Bloem, B.: Motor imagery of gait: a quantitative approach. Exp. Brain Res. 179(3), 497–504 (2007)
Parsons, L.M., et al.: Use of implicit motor imagery for visual shape discrimination as revealed by PET. Nature 375(6526), 54 (1995)
Hamedi, M., Salleh, S.H., Noor, A.M.: Electroencephalographic motor imagery brain connectivity analysis for BCI: a review. Neural Comput. 28(6), 999–1041 (2016)
Baccalá, L.A., Sameshima, K.: Partial directed coherence: a new concept in neural structure determination. Biol. Cybern. 84(6), 463–474 (2001)
Neumaier, A., Schneider, T.: Estimation of parameters and eigenmodes of multivariate autoregressive models. ACM Trans. Math. Softw. (TOMS) 27(1), 27–57 (2001)
Delorme, A., Makeig, S.: EEGLAB: an open source toolbox for analysis of single-trial EEG dynamics including independent component analysis. J. Neurosci. Methods 134(1), 9–21 (2004)
Gaxiola-Tirado, J.A., Salazar-Varas, R., Gutiérrez, D.: Using the partial directed coherence to assess functional connectivity in electroencephalography data for brain-computer interfaces. IEEE Trans. Cogn. Dev. Syst. 10(3), 776–783 (2018)
Schelter, B., et al.: Testing for directed influences among neural signals using partial directed coherence. J. Neurosci. Methods 152(1–2), 210–219 (2006)
Akaike, H.: A new look at the statistical model identification. IEEE Trans. Autom. Control. 19(6), 716–723 (1974)
van Dun, K., Bodranghien, F.C., Mariën, P., Manto, M.U.: tDCS of the cerebellum: where do we stand in 2016? Technical issues and critical review of the literature. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 10, 199 (2016)
Galea, J.M., Jayaram, G., Ajagbe, L., Celnik, P.: Modulation of cerebellar excitability by polarity-specific noninvasive direct current stimulation. J. Neurosci. 29(28), 9115–9122 (2009)
Acknowledgments
This research has been carried out in the framework of the project Associate - Decoding and stimulation of motor and sensory brain activity to support long term potentiation through Hebbian and paired associative stimulation during rehabilitation of gait (DPI2014-58431-C4-2-R), funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) “A way to build Europe”. Also, the Mexican Council of Science and Technology (CONACyT) provided J. A. Gaxiola-Tirado his scholarship, under Grant 220145.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Gaxiola-Tirado, J.A., Rodríguez-Ugarte, M., Iáñez, E., Ortiz, M., Gutiérrez, D., Azorín, J.M. (2019). The Effect of tDCS on EEG-Based Functional Connectivity in Gait Motor Imagery. In: Ferrández Vicente, J., Álvarez-Sánchez, J., de la Paz López, F., Toledo Moreo, J., Adeli, H. (eds) Understanding the Brain Function and Emotions. IWINAC 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11486. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19591-5_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19591-5_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-19590-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-19591-5
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)