At-home tDCS of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex improves visual short-term memory in mild vascular dementia

Abstract Objectives Previous studies have shown that anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) led to an improvement of various cognitive functions in patients with Alzheimer dementia, early affected by short-term memory deficits. Since this approach has not been evaluated in the context of vascular dementia, which rather affects the velocity of cognitive responses, we aimed at improving these functions by applying repetitive sessions of anodal tDCS. Methods Four 20-minute sessions of 2 mA anodal or sham at-home tDCS were applied to the left DLPFC in a single-blinded randomised study of 21 patients with mild vascular dementia, with parallel-group design. The effect of tDCS on cognitive testing was assessed up to two weeks beyond the stimulation time. Results A similar clinically meaningful improvement of various cognitive and behavioral dysfunction characteristics could be observed following either active or sham tDCS, whereas visual recall, and reaction times in the n-back task as well as in the go/no-go test improved only in the active tDCS group. Conclusions In patients with mild vascular dementia, anodal tDCS of the left DLPFC is able to produce additional effects to cognitive training on visual short-term memory, verbal working memory, and executive control.