Key factors in the cortical response to transcranial electrical Stimulations-A multi-scale modeling study.

Transcranial electrode stimulation (tES), one of the techniques used to apply non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS), modulates cortical activities by delivering weak electric currents through scalp-attached electrodes. This emerging technique has gained increasing attention recently; however, the results of tES vary greatly depending upon subjects and the stimulation paradigm, and its cellular mechanism remains unclear. In particular, there is a controversy over the factors that determine the cortical response to tES.

Is electric field strength deterministic in cortical neurons' response to transcranial electrical stimulation?

Transcranial electrical stimulation (tES), which modulates cortical excitability via electric currents, has attracted increasing attention because of its application in treating neurologic and psychiatric disorders. To obtain a better understanding of the brain areas affected and stimulation's cellular effects, a multi-scale model was proposed that combines multi-compartmental neuronal models and a head model. While one multi-scale model of tES that used straight axons reported that the direction of electric field (EF) is a determining factor in a neuronal response, another model of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) that used arborized axons reported that EF magnitude is more crucial than EF direction because of arborized axons' reduced sensitivity to the latter.

Morphological Influence and Electric Field Direction's Influence on Activation of Cortical Neurons in Electrical Brain Stimulation: a Computational Study.

Electrical brain stimulation (EBS) has been actively researched because of its clinical application and usefulness in brain research. However, its effect on individual neurons remains uncertain, as each neuron's response to EBS is highly variable and dependent on its morphology and the axis in which a neuron lies. Hence, our goal was to investigate the way that neuronal morphology affects the cellular response to extracellular stimulation from multiple directions.