Modulating the resting-state functional connectivity patterns of language processing areas in the human brain with anodal transcranial direct current stimulation applied over the Broca's area

Cortical circuit reorganization induced by anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the Broca's area of the dominant language hemisphere in 13 healthy adults was quantified by functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Transient cortical reorganization patterns in steady-state functional connectivity (seed-based and graph theory analysis) and temporal functional connectivity (sliding window correlation analysis) were recorded before, during, and after applying high current tDCS (1 mA, 8 min). fNIRS connectivity mapping showed that tDCS induced significantly (p < 0.05) increased functional connectivity between Broca's area and its neighboring cortical regions while it simultaneously decreased the connectivity to remote cortical regions. Furthermore, the anodal stimulation caused significant increases to the functional connectivity variability (FCV) of remote cortical regions related to language processing. In addition to the high current tDCS, low current tDCS (0.5 mA, 2 min 40 s) was also applied to test whether the transient effects of lower stimulation current could qualitatively predict cortical connectivity alterations induced by the higher currents. Interestingly, low current tDCS could qualitatively predict the increase in clustering coefficient and FCV but not the enhancement of local connectivity. Our findings indicate the possibility of combining future studies fNIRS with tDCS at lower currents to help guide therapeutic interventions. (C) The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.