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

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 2mA 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.