Bi-frontal transcranial alternating current stimulation in the ripple range reduced overnight forgetting

Géza Gergely Ambrus, Alberto Pisoni, Annika Primaßin, Zsolt Turi, Walter Paulus, Andrea Antal, Géza Gergely Ambrus, Alberto Pisoni, Annika Primaßin, Zsolt Turi, Walter Paulus, Andrea Antal

Abstract

High frequency oscillations in the hippocampal structures recorded during sleep have been proved to be essential for long-term episodic memory consolidation in both animals and in humans. The aim of this study was to test if transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation (tACS) of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in the hippocampal ripple range, applied bi-frontally during encoding, could modulate declarative memory performance, measured immediately after encoding, and after a night's sleep. An associative word-pair learning test was used. During an evening encoding phase, participants received 1 mA 140 Hz tACS or sham stimulation over both DLPFCs for 10 min while being presented twice with a list of word-pairs. Cued recall performance was investigated 10 min after training and the morning following the training session. Forgetting from evening to morning was observed in the sham condition, but not in the 140 Hz stimulation condition. 140 Hz tACS during encoding may have an effect on the consolidation of declarative material.

Keywords: declarative memory; ripple oscillation; tACS; transcranial alternating current stimulation; verbal associative learning.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The experimental procedure. At 10 p.m., during 10 min of active or sham tACS stimulation the participants saw a word list two times. After an unfilled break of 10 min the subjects were tested on cued recall of the second word. Next morning at 8 a.m. they were tested again on the cued recall of the second word. The subjects participated in the study according to a repeated measures design.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Performance on the associative word-pair learning task. (A) A paired t-test revealed a significant difference in performance in the sham stimulation condition, indicating forgetting. No such difference could be observed in the active stimulation condition. (B) The difference in the number of correctly recalled words from evening to morning was shown to be significantly different between the stimulation conditions. Error bars denote SEM.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Difference in performance between the evening and morning sessions, when data from subjects performing under 60% in the training session of either sham or active stimulation session are retrospectively removed. Data from Marshall et al. (2006) shown for comparison. Error bars denote SEM.

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