Closed-loop transcranial alternating current stimulation of slow oscillations

Abstract

Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) is an emerging non-invasive tool for modulating brain oscillations. There is evidence that weak oscillatory electrical stimulation during sleep can entrain cortical slow oscillations to improve the memory consolidation in rodents and humans. Using a novel method and a custom built stimulation device, automatic stimulation of slow oscillations in-phase with the endogenous activity in a real-time closed-loop setup is possible. Preliminary data from neuroplasticity experiments show a high detection performance of the proposed method, electrical measurements demonstrate the outstanding quality of the presented stimulation device.

Keywords

• transcranial alternating current stimulation
• slow oscillations
• memory consolidation