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Cerebellar-hippocampal volume associations with behavioral outcomes following tDCS modulation - PubMed

️Wed Jan 01 2025

Cerebellar-hippocampal volume associations with behavioral outcomes following tDCS modulation

Thamires N C Magalhães et al. Brain Imaging Behav. 2025.

Abstract

Here, we explore the relationship between transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and brain-behavior interactions. We propose that tDCS perturbation allows for the investigation of relationships between brain volume and behavior. We focused on the hippocampus (HPC) and cerebellum (CB) regions that are implicated in our understanding of memory and motor skill acquisition. Seventy-four young adults (mean age: 22 ± 0.42 years, mean education: 14.7 ± 0.25 years) were randomly assigned to receive either anodal, cathodal, or sham stimulation. Following stimulation, participants completed computerized tasks assessing working memory and sequence learning in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) environment. We investigated the statistical interaction between CB and HPC volumes. Our findings showed that individuals with larger cerebellar volumes had shorter reaction times (RT) on a high-load working memory task in the sham stimulation group. In contrast, the anodal stimulation group exhibited faster RTs during the low-load working memory condition. These RT differences were associated with the cortical volumetric interaction between CB-HPC. Literature suggests that anodal stimulation down-regulates the CB and here, those with larger volumes perform more quickly, suggesting the potential need for additional cognitive resources to compensate for cerebellar downregulation or perturbation. This new insight suggests that tDCS can aid in revealing structure-function relationships, due to greater performance variability, especially in young adults. It may also reveal new targets of interest in the study of aging or in diseases where there is also greater behavioral variability.

Keywords: Brain-behavior; Cerebellum; Cognitive process; Cortical volumetric interaction; Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS).

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethical approval: The study procedures were approved by the Texas A&M University Institutional Review Board and adhered to the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki. Before any testing procedures, all participants completed a written consent form to participate in the study. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

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Cerebellar-hippocampal volume associations with behavioral outcomes following tDCS modulation - PubMed