TY  - JOUR
AU  - Linnhoff, Stefanie
AU  - Haghikia, Aiden
AU  - Zähle, Tino
TI  - Effects of repetitive twice-weekly transcranial direct current stimulations on fatigue and fatigability in people with multiple sclerosis.
JO  - Scientific reports
VL  - 13
IS  - 1
SN  - 2045-2322
CY  - [London]
PB  - Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature
M1  - DZNE-2023-00452
SP  - 5878
PY  - 2023
AB  - Fatigue is associated with a dramatically decreased quality of life in people with multiple sclerosis (pwMS). It refers to a constant subjective feeling of exhaustion and performance decline, known as fatigability. However, inconsistency and heterogeneity in defining and assessing fatigue have led to limited advances in understanding and treating MS-associated fatigue. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has emerged as a promising, non-pharmaceutical treatment strategy for subjective fatigue. However, whether repetitive tDCS also have long-term effects on time-on-task performance has not yet been investigated. This pseudorandomized, single-blinded, and sham-controlled study investigated tDCS effects on behavioral and electrophysiological parameters. 18 pwMS received eight twice-weekly 30 min stimulations over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Fatigability was operationalized as time-on-task-related changes in reaction time variability and P300 amplitude. Additionally, subjective trait and state fatigue ratings were assessed. The results revealed an overall decrease in subjective trait fatigue ratings that lasted at least four weeks after the stimulations. However, the ratings declined after both anodal and sham tDCS. No effects were found on subjective state fatigue and objective fatigability parameters. Linear Mixed Models and Bayesian Regression models likewise favored the absence of a tDCS effect on fatigability parameters. The results confirm the complex relationship between MS-associated fatigue and fatigability. Reliable and clinically relevant parameters need to be established to extend the potential of tDCS for treating fatigability. Furthermore, our results indicate that consecutive stimulations rather than twice-weekly stimulations should be the preferred stimulation scheme in future studies.
KW  - Fatigue: diagnosis
KW  - Humans
KW  - Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation: methods
KW  - Multiple Sclerosis: complications
KW  - Quality of Life
KW  - Bayes Theorem
KW  - Fatigue: complications
KW  - Fatigue: etiology
KW  - Fatigue: physiopathology
KW  - Fatigue: therapy
KW  - Multiple Sclerosis: physiopathology
KW  - Single-Blind Method
KW  - Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex
KW  - Task Performance and Analysis
KW  - Reaction Time
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
C6  - pmid:37041183
C2  - pmc:PMC10090173
DO  - DOI:10.1038/s41598-023-32779-y
UR  - https://pub.dzne.de/record/257572
ER  -