Improving mentalizing deficits in older age with region-specific transcranial direct current stimulation.

Journal article

Lischke, A., Pahnke, Rike, Mäder, Anna, Martin, Andrew K and Meinzer, Marcus 2024. Improving mentalizing deficits in older age with region-specific transcranial direct current stimulation. GeroScience. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11357-024-01206-z
AuthorsLischke, A., Pahnke, Rike, Mäder, Anna, Martin, Andrew K and Meinzer, Marcus
AbstractOlder adults have difficulties to detect the intentions, thoughts, and feelings of others, indicating an age-associated decline of socio-cognitive abilities that are known as "mentalizing". These deficits in mental state recognition are driven by neurofunctional alterations in brain regions that are implicated in mentalizing, such as the right temporo-parietal junction (rTPJ) and the dorso-medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC). We tested whether focal transcranial current stimulation (tDCS) of the rTPJ and dmPFC has the potential to eliminate mentalizing deficits in older adults. Mentalizing deficits were assessed with a novel mindreading task that required the recognition of mental states in child faces. Older adults (n = 60) performed worse than younger adults (n = 30) on the mindreading task, indicating age-dependent deficits in mental state recognition. These mentalizing deficits were ameliorated in older adults who received sham-controlled andodal tDCS over the rTPJ (n = 30) but remained unchanged in older adults who received sham-controlled andodal tDCS over the dmPFC (n = 30). We, thus, showed for the first time that anodal tDCS over the rTPJ has the potential to remediate age-dependent mentalizing deficits in a region-specific way. This provides a rationale for exploring stimulation-based interventions targeting mentalizing deficits in older age. [Abstract copyright: © 2024. The Author(s).]
KeywordsTranscranial direct current stimulation; Mindreading; Aging; Temporo-parietal junction
Year2024
JournalGeroScience
PublisherSpringer
ISSN2509-2723
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1007/s11357-024-01206-z
Official URLhttps://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11357-024-01206-z
Publication dates
Online15 Jun 2024
Publication process dates
Accepted13 May 2024
Deposited04 Jul 2024
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Open
Output statusPublished
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