Abstract
Behavioral flexibility (or set-shifting), which is regulated by the prefrontal cortex (PFC), is often impaired in patients with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which is characterized by poor inhibitory control and reinforcement learning. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has been proposed as a means of noninvasive brain stimulation and a potential therapeutic tool for modulating behavioral flexibility. Animal studies can pave the way to know if tDCS application can potentially benefit rule- and goal-based activities in ADHD. Spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs) and inbred Wistar–Kyoto (WKY) rats were used as an animal model of ADHD and controls, respectively, and their strategy set-shifting abilities, including initial discrimination, set-shifting, and reversal learning tasks under 0-s or 15-s reinforcer delivery delay conditions, were evaluated. The tDCS treatment had a limited effect on the performance of the SHRs and WKY rats in initial discrimination task under 0-s delay condition. Under the 15-s delay condition, the SHRs had longer lever-press reaction times and/or more trial omissions than the WKY rats did when completing set-shifting and reversal-learning tasks. Among the SHRs, tDCS treatment improved the rats’ reaction times and/or reduced their trial omissions in the set-shifting and reversal-learning tasks. Although tDCS may improve delayed reinforcement learning set-shifting performance in SHRs, further studies are required to clarify the responsible mechanism.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 114145 |
Pages (from-to) | 114145 |
Journal | Behavioural Brain Research |
Volume | 437 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 02 02 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Copyright © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Keywords
- Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
- Reinforcement learning
- Set-shifting
- Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)
- Rats, Inbred SHR
- Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation
- Animals
- Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity
- Rats
- Rats, Inbred WKY
- Attention/physiology
- Disease Models, Animal