Effects of Occipital Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on a Visual Reaction Time
The discrepancy in the effectiveness of transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) on cognitive processes raises the need for further investigations. The current study investigated occipital tDCS effects on reaction time (RT) of the visual- Orientation Discrimination Task (ODT) using secondary data analysis of a previous study investigating occipital-tDCS effects on visual-ODT thresholds. The ODT comprised vertical and oblique conditions. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions (Anodal-tDCS, Cathodal-tDCS, Sham-tDCS) between two ODT runs (first run: pre-experimental condition, and second run: post-experimental condition) for 10 minutes with an intensity of 2mA. A mixed model ANOVA analysis of data from 78 participants showed that RT was shorter for the oblique condition than the vertical condition, reflecting an “inverse oblique effect”. Also, the analysis showed that RT was shorter for the second ODT run than the first run, irrespective of the experimental condition. Additionally, the result showed no observable effects of tDCS on the visual RT. Explanations for the absent effects of occipital- tDCS on the current study are discussed.
Excitation-inhibition (E-I) balance has been indirectly inferred from psychophysical measures (i.e., performance in orientation discrimination task [ODT]) and neurophysiological measures (i.e.,…
The aim of the current study was to investigate the difference between hearing students of King Saud University and their counterparts with hearing disabilities in sustained visual attention.
The discrepancy in the effectiveness of transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) on cognitive processes raises the need for further investigations.