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REVIEW article

Front. Behav. Neurosci.
Sec. Emotion Regulation and Processing
Volume 18 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2024.1374480
This article is part of the Research Topic Noninvasive Brain Stimulation: A Promising Approach to Study and Improve Emotion Regulation View all 3 articles

Electric Stimulation of Emotion: A Systematic Review of Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) and Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) in Reducing Emotional Bias

Provisionally accepted
Yu Deng Yu Deng 1Yunting Chen Yunting Chen 1Yujie Wang Yujie Wang 1Wenjing Yan Wenjing Yan 2Chencheng Zhang Chencheng Zhang 3*
  • 1 School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
  • 2 Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, Shanghai Municipality, China
  • 3 Ruijin Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, Beijing, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Psychological disorders affect millions of people worldwide. Electrical stimulation techniques, including deep brain stimulation (DBS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), show potential in treating various psychological conditions such as treatment-resistant depression (TRD). One notable advantage of these treatments is their immediate efficacy. However, this property remains largely understudied due to the limitations of mainstream assessment scales. Conversely, negative emotion bias, characterized by a heightened response to negative stimuli, is closely associated with many psychological disorders and allows for immediate and frequent measurement.This systematic review aims to investigate the effects of DBS and tDCS on emotional bias. Adhering to PRISMA guidelines, searches were carried out in PubMed, Web of Science, and Embase. After screening the titles and abstracts of 1,906 publications, 19 studies from 2010 to 2022 were selected for horizontal comparison.Here we show that high-frequency DBS targeting the subgenual Anterior Cingulate Cortex (sgACC), subthalamic nucleus (STN), and amygdala can enhance emotion perception and alleviate emotional bias. Conversely, low-frequency transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) applied to dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) shows efficacy in modulating emotional biases and cognitive functions linked to emotional processing. Notably, vmPFC tDCS studies yield more consistent outcomes, with anodal stimulation enhancing perception of positive stimuli and cathodal stimulation heightening sensitivity to negative stimuli.This review synthesizes current evidence on the effects of DBS and tDCS on emotional bias, offering insights into the mechanisms by which brain stimulation can regulate emotions. Additionally, it highlights the limitations of existing studies and provides recommendations for future research.

    Keywords: emotion, DBS, tDCS, Electric Stimulation, Emotion bias

    Received: 22 Jan 2024; Accepted: 10 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Deng, Chen, Wang, Yan and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Chencheng Zhang, Ruijin Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200025, Beijing, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.