Journal
BRAIN STIMULATION
Volume 7, Issue 4, Pages 499-507Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC
DOI: 10.1016/j.brs.2014.04.008
Keywords
Transcranial direct current stimulation; Sleep deprivation; Caffeine; Cognition; Attention
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Background: Sleep deprivation from extended duty hours is a common complaint for many occupations. Caffeine is one of the most common countermeasures used to combat fatigue. However, the benefits of caffeine decline over time and with chronic use. Objective: Our objective was to evaluate the efficacy of anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) applied to the pre-frontal cortex at 2 mA for 30 min to remediate the effects of sleep deprivation and to compare the behavioral effects of tDCS with those of caffeine. Methods: Three groups of 10 participants each received either active tDCS with placebo gum, caffeine gum with sham tDCS, or sham tDCS with placebo gum during 30 h of extended wakefulness. Results: Our results show that tDCS prevented a decrement in vigilance and led to better subjective ratings for fatigue, drowsiness, energy, and composite mood compared to caffeine and control in sleep-deprived individuals. Both the tDCS and caffeine produced similar improvements in latencies on a short-term memory task and faster reaction times in a psychomotor task when compared to the placebo group. Interestingly, changes in accuracy for the tDCS group were not correlated to changes in mood; whereas, there was a relationship for the caffeine and sham groups. Conclusion: Our data suggest that tDCS could be a useful fatigue countermeasure and may be more beneficial than caffeine since boosts in performance and mood last several hours. Published by Elsevier Inc.
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