New Grant award for DoD to research: Cellular Mechanisms of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation

With Dr. Marom Bikson as PI, the CCNY Neural Engineering group was awarded a major 3 years grant from the Department of Defense (DoD) Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR).

During transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS), low-intensity DC current is applied across the scalp to enhance specific performance or training efficacy on a range of complex cognitive tasks; moreover tDCS has been suggested to produce minimal side-effects (undesired cognitive changes).  The central premise of this proposal if that tDCS achieves task-specific modulation through a cellular mechanism where only neuronal circuits primed during tDCS (for example by training) are modulated by tDCS, while none primed mechanisms are not modulated.  The specific goal of this proposal is thus to establish a cellular substrate for DCS mediated activation-specific changes.