Effects of TDCS on brain functional network of patients after stroke

Abstract

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is an emerging brain intervention technique. However, the effects of tDCS on stroke patients are unclear. In this study, Granger Causality (GC) is used to construct brain functional networks of the tDCS group (9 cases) and the sham tDCS group (11 cases). Some parameters of brain functional networks are analyzed comparatively, such as degree, clustering coefficient, betweenness centrality, characteristic path length, and efficiency. In tDCS group, the results show that the distribution of degree changes greatly in left prefrontal lobe and left temporal lobe regions, the distribution of betweenness centrality transfers, characteristic path length decreases, clustering coefficient and efficiency increase significantly (p < 0:05) after stimulation. However, there is no significant difference in sham tDCS group. In this study, the positive effects of tDCS on the therapeutic of stroke are clarified and the evidence for the effects of tDCS on stroke is provided.