Effect of transcranial direct current stimulation on prefrontal inhibition in schizophrenia patients with persistent auditory hallucinations: A study on antisaccade task performance

oleh: Aditi Subramaniam, Sri Mahavir Agarwal, Sunil Kalmady, Venkataram Shivakumar, Harleen Chhabra, Anushree Bose, Dinakaran Damodharan, Janardhanan C Narayanaswamy, Sam B Hutton, Ganesan Venkatasubramanian

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: SAGE Publishing 2015-01-01

Deskripsi

Background: Deficient prefrontal cortex inhibitory control is of particular interest with regard to the pathogenesis of auditory hallucinations (AHs) in schizophrenia. Antisaccade task performance is a sensitive index of prefrontal inhibitory function and has been consistently found to be abnormal in schizophrenia. Methods: This study investigated the effect of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on antisaccade performance in 13 schizophrenia patients. Results: The tDCS resulted in significant reduction in antisaccade error percentage (t = 3.4; P = 0.005), final eye position gain (t = 2.3; P = 0.042), and AHs severity (t = 4.1; P = 0.003). Conclusion: Our results raise the possibility that improvement in antisaccade performance and severity of AH may be mechanistically related.