In these years, researchers have begun to apply transcranial alternating current stimulation to the field of mental disorders. Especially, the gamma- and alpha-band frequencies are attracting the most attention. The underlying mechanisms of the effects of tACS on mental disorders might be directly modulating abnormal brain neural activities and indirectly improving cognitive functions of patients’. First, neuroimaging studies have shown that a specific frequency tACS targeting specific brain region could modulate the nerve oscillations of corresponding frequency and brain functional connections, which directly reducing clinical symptoms of patients. Second, instead of targeting the specific damaged brain activity in mental diseases, the tACS is used to activate neural circuits associated to cognitive functions, so as to improve the attention, memory and other cognitive functions, thus alleviating adverse symptoms indirectly. At present, there are still some unsolved problems in the application of tACS. The mechanism of its effects, the improvement of stimulus parameters and paradigms, and the enhancement of technique upgrading may become the key direction of future study.

近年来,研究者开始将经颅交流电刺激技术应用于精神疾病领域中,其中,以γ、α频率最受关注。tACS作用于精神疾病的可能机制包括两个方面,直接调节异常的大脑神经活动和间接改善患者的认知功能。首先,使用特定频率的tACS作用目标脑区,可以调节对应频率的神经振荡和大脑功能连接,通过作用于疾病相关的异常大脑活动,直接改善患者的临床症状。其次,并不针对某种疾病特异受损的大脑活动,而是用tACS激活与认知功能相关的大脑环路,广泛地提高患者的注意、记忆等多种认知功能,进而整体上缓解不良症状。目前,使用tACS治疗精神疾病这一领域还有一些尚未解决、值得探讨的问题。tACS的作用机制研究、刺激参数和范式改进、技术升级,可以成为心理学、脑科学以及临床医学的重点研究方向。

中国科学院心理服务工程实验室项目(KFJ-PTXM-29)