Bilateral transcranial direct current stimulation over dorsolateral prefrontal cortex changes the drug-cued reactivity in the anterior cingulate cortex of crack-cocaine addicts.

Background: Patients addicted to crack-cocaine routinely have difficulty sustaining treatment, which could be related to dysfunctional cerebral activity that occurs in addiction.

Objective: To investigate the indirect electrophysiological effects of single transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on cocaine-addicted brains.

Methods: The patients received either left cathodal/right anodal or sham stimulation over the DLPFC. The region of interest was the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) during the N2 time window (200-350 ms). Event-related potentials in the ACC were measured during visual presentation of crack-related cues or neutral cues.

Results: Low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (LORETA) indicated that exposure to crack-related images led to increased activity in the ACC in the sham group, while the tDCS group showed decreased ACC activity after visualization of drug cues.

Conclusions: Prefrontal tDCS specifically modulated the ACC response during exposure to visual drug cues in crack-cocaine users.