经颅直流电刺激
颞顶交界
前额叶腹内侧皮质
心理学
心理理论
自闭症
脑刺激
神经科学
前额叶皮质
自闭症谱系障碍
刺激
认知心理学
听力学
认知
发展心理学
医学
作者
Mohammad Ali Salehinejad,Nasim Paknia,Amir Hossein Hosseinpour,Fatemeh Yavari,Carmelo M. Vicario,Michael A. Nitsche,Vahid Nejati
标识
DOI:10.31234/osf.io/zt5da
摘要
Theory of mind (ToM) is the ability to attribute subjective mental states to oneself and others and is significantly impaired in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). A frontal‐posterior network of regions including the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and temporoparietal junction (TPJ) is involved in ToM. Previous studies show an underactivation of these regions in ASD. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a noninvasive brain stimulation method for causally investigating brain‐behavior relationships via induction of cortical excitability alterations. tDCS, mostly over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, has been increasingly applied for improving behavioral problems in ASD leaving other potentially interesting regions untouched. Here we investigated the contribution of the vmPFC and right TPJ in ToM abilities of ASD children via tDCS in a pilot study. Sixteen children with ASD (mean age = 10.7 ± 1.9) underwent three tDCS sessions (1 mA, 20 min) in a randomized, sham‐controlled design. Stimulation protocols included: (a) anodal vmPFC tDCS, (b) anodal r‐TPJ tDCS, and (c) sham tDCS. ToM abilities were explored during tDCS using the theory of mind test (TOMT). Our results show that activation of the vmPFC with anodal tDCS significantly improved ToM in children with ASD compared with both, r‐TPJ tDCS, and sham stimulation. Specifically, precursors of ToM (e.g., emotion recognition, perception, and imitation) and elementary ToM skills (e.g., first‐order mental state reasoning) were significantly improved by anodal vmPFC tDCS. Based on these results, the vmPFC could be a potential target region for the reduction of ASD symptoms via noninvasive brain stimulation, which should be examined in larger detail in future studies
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