B-2. Clinical application of patterned DC stimulation

Publication date: May 2018
Source:Clinical Neurophysiology, Volume 129, Issue 5
Author(s): Tatsuya Mima
In addition to conventional surgical and pharmacological methods, electromagnetic interventions to the human brain have been developed for testing and treating neuropsychiatric disorders. Considering that the central principle of brain coding is based on neural firings and cell membrane potentials, that is electrical phenomena, electromagnetic intervention to the brain can be useful and effective for modulating brain functions.Among various electromagnetic methods, the most advanced one is the transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) which was put into practical use in 1985. The transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) whose usefulness has been reconfirmed since the late 1990s is spreading as a simple and inexpensive brain function intervention method. With regard to the safety of tDCS, it is not strong enough to cause neural firing itself, so there is the advantage that epilepsy and other health risks are extremely low.Instead of applying tDCS at a constant current, a patterned current stimulation performed by a variable current – one example of which is AC stimulation (tACS) – can be useful for efficiently modifying brain function with low energy by entrainment. This is because oscillation is important as a general organization principle of brain function (Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas "Oscillology"). Regarding the oscillation phenomenon, it is known that entrainment occurs between oscillations of similar frequencies and synchronization of phase difference is likely to occur even in communication with a small amount of energy. It has been shown that it is possible to synchronize EEG activity to tACS in alpha rhythm.Currently, we are studying whether it is possible to reconstruct gait function in Parkinson patients by patterned current stimulation synchronized with walking rhythm. In this educational lecture, we describe the importance of the oscillation in the brain function and the clinical application of the patterned current stimulation.



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