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68 Preliminary Evidence of a Therapeutic Effect of Electrical Neuromodulation on Cognitive Deficits in Patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2023

Christian LoBue*
Affiliation:
UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA.
Didehbani Nyaz
Affiliation:
UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA.
Hsueh-Sheng Chiang
Affiliation:
UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA.
John Hart
Affiliation:
UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA.
Jessica Helphrey
Affiliation:
UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA.
Michael Conley
Affiliation:
UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA.
Eric Smernoff
Affiliation:
Baylor University Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA
Laura Lacritz
Affiliation:
UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA.
Caitlin Reese
Affiliation:
UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA.
C M Cullum
Affiliation:
UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA.
Cindy Marshall
Affiliation:
Baylor University Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA
Trung Nguyen
Affiliation:
UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA.
Brendan J Kelley
Affiliation:
UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA.
Alka Khera
Affiliation:
UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA.
Alex Frolov
Affiliation:
UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA.
Natalie Martinez
Affiliation:
UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA.
Rebecca Logan
Affiliation:
UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA.
*
Correspondence: Christian LoBue, PhD, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Christian.LoBue@utsw.edu
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Abstract

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Objective:

Episodic memory functioning is distributed across two brain circuits, one of which courses through the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC). Thus, delivering non-invasive neuromodulation technology to the dACC may improve episodic memory functioning in patients with memory problems such as in amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI). This preliminary study is a randomized, double-blinded, sham-controlled clinical trial to examine if high definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS) can be a viable treatment in aMCI.

Participants and Methods:

Eleven aMCI participants, of whom 9 had multidomain deficits, were randomized to receive 1 mA HD-tDCS (N=7) or sham (N=4) stimulation. HD-tDCS was applied over ten 20-minute sessions targeting the dACC. Neuropsychological measures of episodic memory, verbal fluency, and executive function were completed at baseline and after the last HD-tDCS session. Changes in composite scores for memory and language/executive function tests were compared between groups (one-tailed t-tests with a = 0.10 for significance). Clinically significant change, defined as > 1 SD improvement on at least one test in the memory and non-memory domains, was compared between active and sham stimulation based on the frequency of participants in each.

Results:

No statistical or clinically significant change (N-1 X2; p = 0.62) was seen in episodic memory for the active HD-tDCS (MDiff = 4.4; SD = 17.1) or sham groups (MDiff = -0.5; SD = 9.7). However, the language and executive function composite showed statistically significant improvement (p = 0.04; MDiff = -15.3; SD = 18.4) for the active HD-tDCS group only (Sham MDiff = -5.8; SD = 10.7). Multiple participants (N=4) in the active group had clinically significant enhancement in language and executive functioning tests, while nobody in the sham group did (p = 0.04).

Conclusions:

HD-tDCS targeting the dACC had no direct benefit for episodic memory deficits in aMCI based on preliminary findings for this ongoing clinical trial. However, significant improvement in language and executive function skills occurred in response to HD-tDCS, suggesting HD-tDCS in this configuration has promising potential as an intervention for language and executive function deficits in MCI.

Type
Poster Session 05: Neuroimaging | Neurophysiology | Neurostimulation | Technology | Cross Cultural | Multiculturalism | Career Development
Copyright
Copyright © INS. Published by Cambridge University Press, 2023