CURRENT TRENDS IN NEUROSCIENCES
tDCS APPLICATIONS IN THE DEVELOPMENT/IMPROVEMENT OF VISUAL WORKING MEMORY
Yayıncı:
İstanbul Üniversitesi Yayınları
Transcranial direct current stimulation is a non-invasive brain stimulation method. Although the use of electricity for therapeutic purposes dates back to ancient times, the use of tDCS for brain stimulation can be considered a relatively new method. The fact that the device is small and portable and that safety conditions have improved has increased the frequency of research on this device today. Working memory is a concept that was introduced in the early 1990s, and until the early 2000s, the verbal part was mostly studied. The increase in studies on visual working memory and the fact that the two subsystems of working memory (verbal and visual) work separately from each other has paved the way for separate research on these memory types. The use of tDCS to increase the capacity of visual working memory dates to the early 2010s. Similarly, visual working memory has been shown to be impaired in various diseases and tDCS is used to improve this impairment. In this article, the historical development of tDCS and the basis behind it, the studies on visual working memory are discussed, and then the relationship between visual working memory and tDCS application in healthy individuals and various diseases is examined.
