Fronto-parietal theta high-definition transcranial alternating current stimulation may modulate working memory under postural control conditions in young healthy adults

Yanwen Xiao; Junhong Zhou; Rong Zhou; Yu Liu; Jiaojiao Lü; Lingyan Huang

doi:10.3389/fnhum.2023.1265600

Fronto-parietal theta high-definition transcranial alternating current stimulation may modulate working memory under postural control conditions in young healthy adults

Front Hum Neurosci. 2023 Nov 6:17:1265600. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2023.1265600. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Yanwen Xiao^#^{1

2}, Junhong Zhou^#³, Rong Zhou¹, Yu Liu¹, Jiaojiao Lü¹, Lingyan Huang¹

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Exercise and Health Sciences of Ministry of Education, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, China.
² Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Shenshan Medical Center, Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Shanwei, Guangdong, China.
³ Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Objects: This study aimed to investigate the immediate effects of fronto-parietal θ HD-tACS on a dual task of working memory-postural control.

Methods: In this within-subject cross-over pilot study, we assessed the effects of 20 min of 6 Hz-tACS targeting both the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (lDLPFC) and posterior parietal cortex (PPC) in 20 healthy adults (age: 21.6 ± 1.3 years). During each session, single- and dual-task behavioral tests (working memory single-task, static tandem standing, and a dual-task of working memory-postural control) and closed-eye resting-state EEG were assessed before and immediately after stimulation.

Results: Within the tACS group, we found a 5.3% significant decrease in working memory response time under the dual-task following tACS (t = -3.157, p = 0.005, Cohen's d = 0.742); phase synchronization analysis revealed a significant increase in the phase locking value (PLV) of θ band between F3 and P3 after tACS (p = 0.010, Cohen's d = 0.637). Correlation analyses revealed a significant correlation between increased rs-EEG θ power in the F3 and P3 channels and faster reaction time (r = -0.515, p = 0.02; r = -0.483, p = 0.031, respectively) in the dual-task working memory task after tACS. However, no differences were observed on either upright postural control performance or rs-EEG results (p-values <0.05).

Conclusion: Fronto-parietal θ HD-tACS has the potential of being a neuromodulatory tool for improving working memory performance in dual-task situations, but its effect on the modulation of concurrently performed postural control tasks requires further investigation.

Keywords: HD-tACS; dual-task; postural control; resting-state EEG; working memory.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (11932013) and the Open Subject of Key Laboratory of Exercise and Health Sciences of Ministry of Education (2022KF0006).