Assessment of the capability to target cerebellar sub-regions with high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS) over the cerebellum

The increasing interest in the application of tDCS over different cerebral regions has induced increasing efforts into the optimization of specific electrodes montages to selectively target the desired volumes. In order to increase the stimulation focusing, High-Definition (HD) tDCS electrodes have been proposed and their efficacy was firstly assessed by computational methods. In this paper, we optimized the deployment of HD-tDCS bipolar electrodes montages designed to target three different neural clusters in the cerebellum. The assessment of the electric field generated by and the focusing capability of the montages was evaluated through computational techniques on an anatomical high-definition head model. Results show the possibility to reach even deep target in the cerebellum with an electric field able to induce neuromodulation, while in parallel limiting its field distribution spread.

[1]  M. Bikson,et al.  Spatial and polarity precision of concentric high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS) , 2016, Physics in medicine and biology.

[2]  P. Celnik,et al.  Modulation of Cerebellar Excitability by Polarity-Specific Noninvasive Direct Current Stimulation , 2009, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[3]  Abhishek Datta,et al.  A Feasibility Study of Bilateral Anodal Stimulation of the Prefrontal Cortex Using High-Definition Electrodes in Healthy Participants , 2015, The Yale journal of biology and medicine.

[4]  Yu Huang,et al.  Targeted transcranial direct current stimulation for rehabilitation after stroke , 2013, NeuroImage.

[5]  R. W. Lau,et al.  The dielectric properties of biological tissues: II. Measurements in the frequency range 10 Hz to 20 GHz. , 1996, Physics in medicine and biology.

[6]  M. Bikson,et al.  Electrodes for high-definition transcutaneous DC stimulation for applications in drug delivery and electrotherapy, including tDCS , 2010, Journal of Neuroscience Methods.

[7]  Christopher L. Asplund,et al.  The organization of the human cerebellum estimated by intrinsic functional connectivity. , 2011, Journal of neurophysiology.

[8]  D. Reato,et al.  Gyri-precise head model of transcranial direct current stimulation: Improved spatial focality using a ring electrode versus conventional rectangular pad , 2009, Brain Stimulation.

[9]  Alberto Priori,et al.  Cerebellar tDCS: How to Do It , 2014, The Cerebellum.

[10]  J. Jefferys,et al.  Effects of uniform extracellular DC electric fields on excitability in rat hippocampal slices in vitro , 2004, The Journal of physiology.

[11]  M. Parazzini,et al.  Cerebellar and Spinal Direct Current Stimulation in Children: Computational Modeling of the Induced Electric Field , 2016, Front. Hum. Neurosci..

[12]  M. Bikson,et al.  Electrode Positioning and Montage in Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation , 2011, Journal of visualized experiments : JoVE.

[13]  C. Keysers,et al.  Primary somatosensory contribution to action observation brain activity—combining fMRI and cTBS , 2016, Social cognitive and affective neuroscience.

[14]  Niels Kuster,et al.  MIDA: A Multimodal Imaging-Based Detailed Anatomical Model of the Human Head and Neck , 2015, PloS one.

[15]  Marisa O. Hollinshead,et al.  The organization of the human cerebral cortex estimated by intrinsic functional connectivity. , 2011, Journal of neurophysiology.

[16]  Giulio Ruffini,et al.  The electric field in the cortex during transcranial current stimulation , 2013, NeuroImage.

[17]  N. Wenderoth,et al.  A technical guide to tDCS, and related non-invasive brain stimulation tools , 2016, Clinical Neurophysiology.

[18]  Jonathan D. Nelson,et al.  Human cortical representations for reaching: Mirror neurons for execution, observation, and imagery , 2007, NeuroImage.

[19]  C Gabriel,et al.  Comments on 'dielectric properties of the skin'. , 1997, Physics in medicine and biology.

[20]  Paul A. Pope,et al.  Cerebellar Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (ctDCS) , 2016, The Neuroscientist : a review journal bringing neurobiology, neurology and psychiatry.

[21]  C. Gabriel,et al.  Electrical conductivity of tissue at frequencies below 1 MHz , 2009, Physics in medicine and biology.

[22]  Franca Tecchio,et al.  A Computational Model of the Electric Field Distribution due to Regional Personalized or Nonpersonalized Electrodes to Select Transcranial Electric Stimulation Target , 2017, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering.

[23]  M. Nitsche,et al.  Excitability changes induced in the human motor cortex by weak transcranial direct current stimulation , 2000, The Journal of physiology.

[24]  Matteo Ciocca,et al.  Transcranial cerebellar direct current stimulation and transcutaneous spinal cord direct current stimulation as innovative tools for neuroscientists , 2014, The Journal of physiology.

[25]  C. Keysers,et al.  The Observation and Execution of Actions Share Motor and Somatosensory Voxels in all Tested Subjects: Single-Subject Analyses of Unsmoothed fMRI Data , 2008, Cerebral cortex.

[26]  Marta Parazzini,et al.  Modelling the electric field and the current density generated by cerebellar transcranial DC stimulation in humans , 2014, Clinical Neurophysiology.