Early-stage use of hearing aids preserves auditory cortical structure in children with sensorineural hearing loss.

Hearing is critical to spoken language, cognitive, and social development. Little is known about how early auditory experiences impact the brain structure of children with bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. This study examined the influence of hearing aid use and residual hearing on the auditory cortex of children with severe to profound congenital sensorineural hearing loss. We evaluated cortical preservation in 103 young pediatric cochlear implant candidates (55 females and 48 males) by comparing their multivoxel pattern similarity of auditory cortical structure with that of 78 age-matched children with typical hearing. The results demonstrated that early-stage hearing aid use preserved the auditory cortex of children with bilateral congenital sensorineural hearing loss. Children with less residual hearing experienced a more pronounced advantage from hearing aid use. However, this beneficial effect gradually diminished after 17 months of hearing aid use. These findings support timely fitting of hearing aids in conjunction with early implantation to take advantage of neural preservation to maximize auditory and spoken language development.

Brain templates for Chinese babies from newborn to three months of age.

The infant brain develops rapidly and this area of research has great clinical implications. Neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and developmental delay have their origins, potentially, in abnormal early brain maturation. Searching for potential early neural markers requires a priori knowledge about infant brain development and anatomy. One of the most common methods of characterizing brain features requires normalization of individual images into a standard stereotactic space and conduct of group-based analyses in this space. A population representative brain template is critical for these population-based studies. Little research is available on constructing brain templates for typical developing Chinese infants. In the present work, a total of 120 babies from 5 to 89 days of age were included with high resolution structural magnetic resonance imaging scans. T1-weighted and T2-weighted templates were constructed using an unbiased registration approach for babies from newborn to 3 months of age. Age-specific templates were also estimated for babies aged at 0, 1, 2 and 3 months old. Then we conducted a series of evaluations and statistical analyses over whole tissue segmentations and brain parcellations. Compared to the use of population mismatched templates, using our established templates resulted in lower deformation energy to transform individual images into the template space and produced a smaller registration error, i.e., smaller standard deviation of the registered images. Significant volumetric growth was observed across total brain tissues and most of the brain regions within the first three months of age. The total brain tissues exhibited larger volumes in baby boys compared to baby girls. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study focusing on the construction of Chinese infant brain templates. These templates can be used for investigating birth related conditions such as preterm birth, detecting neural biomarkers for neurological and neurodevelopmental disorders in Chinese populations, and exploring genetic and cultural effects on the brain.

Salience and default mode network dysregulation in chronic cocaine users predict treatment outcome.

While chronic cocaine use is associated with abnormalities in both brain structure and function within and interactions between regions, previous studies have been limited to interrogating structure and function independently, and the detected neural differences have not been applied to independent samples to assess the clinical relevance of results. We investigated consequences of structural differences on resting-state functional connectivity in cocaine addiction and tested whether resting-state functional connectivity of the identified circuits predict relapse in an independent cohort. Subjects included 64 non-treatment-seeking cocaine users (NTSCUs) and 67 healthy control subjects and an independent treatment-completed cohort (n = 45) of cocaine-dependent individuals scanned at the end of a 30-day residential treatment programme. Differences in cortical thickness and related resting-state functional connectivity between NTSCUs and healthy control subjects were identified. Survival analysis, applying cortical thickness of the identified regions, resting-state functional connectivity of the identified circuits and clinical characteristics to the treatment cohort, was used to predict relapse. Lower cortical thickness in bilateral insula and higher thickness in bilateral temporal pole were found in NTSCUs versus healthy control subjects. Whole brain resting-state functional connectivity analyses with these four different anatomical regions as seeds revealed eight weaker circuits including within the salience network (insula seeds) and between temporal pole and elements of the default mode network in NTSCUs. Applying these circuits and clinical characteristics to the independent cocaine-dependent treatment cohort, functional connectivity between right temporal pole and medial prefrontal cortex, combined with years of education, predicted relapse status at 150 days with 88% accuracy. Deficits in the salience network suggest an impaired ability to process physiologically salient events, while abnormalities in a temporal pole-medial prefrontal cortex circuit might speak to the social-emotional functional alterations in cocaine addiction. The involvement of the temporal pole-medial prefrontal cortex circuit in a model highly predictive of relapse highlights the importance of social-emotional functions in cocaine dependence, and provides a potential underlying neural target for therapeutic interventions, and for identifying those at high risk of relapse.

Structural and Maturational Covariance in Early Childhood Brain Development.

Brain structural covariance networks (SCNs) composed of regions with correlated variation are altered in neuropsychiatric disease and change with age. Little is known about the development of SCNs in early childhood, a period of rapid cortical growth. We investigated the development of structural and maturational covariance networks, including default, dorsal attention, primary visual and sensorimotor networks in a longitudinal population of 118 children after birth to 2 years old and compared them with intrinsic functional connectivity networks. We found that structural covariance of all networks exhibit strong correlations mostly limited to their seed regions. By Age 2, default and dorsal attention structural networks are much less distributed compared with their functional maps. The maturational covariance maps, however, revealed significant couplings in rates of change between distributed regions, which partially recapitulate their functional networks. The structural and maturational covariance of the primary visual and sensorimotor networks shows similar patterns to the corresponding functional networks. Results indicate that functional networks are in place prior to structural networks, that correlated structural patterns in adult may arise in part from coordinated cortical maturation, and that regional co-activation in functional networks may guide and refine the maturation of SCNs over childhood development.

Dynamic Development of Regional Cortical Thickness and Surface Area in Early Childhood.

Cortical thickness (CT) and surface area (SA) are altered in many neuropsychiatric disorders and are correlated with cognitive functioning. Little is known about how these components of cortical gray matter develop in the first years of life. We studied the longitudinal development of regional CT and SA expansion in healthy infants from birth to 2 years. CT and SA have distinct and heterogeneous patterns of development that are exceptionally dynamic; overall CT increases by an average of 36.1%, while cortical SA increases 114.6%. By age 2, CT is on average 97% of adult values, compared with SA, which is 69%. This suggests that early identification, prevention, and intervention strategies for neuropsychiatric illness need to be targeted to this period of rapid postnatal brain development, and that SA expansion is the principal driving factor in cortical volume after 2 years of age.

Common variants in psychiatric risk genes predict brain structure at birth.

Studies in adolescents and adults have demonstrated that polymorphisms in putative psychiatric risk genes are associated with differences in brain structure, but cannot address when in development these relationships arise. To determine if common genetic variants in disrupted-in-schizophrenia-1 (DISC1; rs821616 and rs6675281), catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT; rs4680), neuregulin 1 (NRG1; rs35753505 and rs6994992), apolipoprotein E (APOE; ε3ε4 vs. ε3ε3), estrogen receptor alpha (ESR1; rs9340799 and rs2234693), brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF; rs6265), and glutamate decarboxylase 1 (GAD1; rs2270335) are associated with individual differences in brain tissue volumes in neonates, we applied both automated region-of-interest volumetry and tensor-based morphometry to a sample of 272 neonates who had received high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging scans. ESR1 (rs9340799) predicted intracranial volume. Local variation in gray matter (GM) volume was significantly associated with polymorphisms in DISC1 (rs821616), COMT, NRG1, APOE, ESR1 (rs9340799), and BDNF. No associations were identified for DISC1 (rs6675281), ESR1 (rs2234693), or GAD1. Of note, neonates homozygous for the DISC1 (rs821616) serine allele exhibited numerous large clusters of reduced GM in the frontal lobes, and neonates homozygous for the COMT valine allele exhibited reduced GM in the temporal cortex and hippocampus, mirroring findings in adults. The results highlight the importance of prenatal brain development in mediating psychiatric risk.

Impact of sex and gonadal steroids on neonatal brain structure.

There are numerous reports of sexual dimorphism in brain structure in children and adults, but data on sex differences in infancy are extremely limited. Our primary goal was to identify sex differences in neonatal brain structure. Our secondary goal was to explore whether brain structure was related to androgen exposure or sensitivity. Two hundred and ninety-three neonates (149 males) received high-resolution structural magnetic resonance imaging scans. Sensitivity to androgen was measured using the number of cytosine, adenine, guanine (CAG) triplets in the androgen receptor gene and the ratio of the second to fourth digit, provided a proxy measure of prenatal androgen exposure. There was a significant sex difference in intracranial volume of 5.87%, which was not related to CAG triplets or digit ratios. Tensor-based morphometry identified extensive areas of local sexual dimorphism. Males had larger volumes in medial temporal cortex and rolandic operculum, and females had larger volumes in dorsolateral prefrontal, motor, and visual cortices. Androgen exposure and sensitivity had minor sex-specific effects on local gray matter volume, but did not appear to be the primary determinant of sexual dimorphism at this age. Comparing our study with the existing literature suggests that sex differences in cortical structure vary in a complex and highly dynamic way across the human lifespan.

FMEM: functional mixed effects modeling for the analysis of longitudinal white matter Tract data.

Many longitudinal imaging studies have collected repeated diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging data to understand white matter maturation and structural connectivity pattern in normal controls and diseased subjects. There is an urgent demand for the development of statistical methods for the analysis of diffusion properties along fiber tracts and clinical data obtained from longitudinal studies. Jointly analyzing repeated fiber-tract diffusion properties and covariates (e.g., age or gender) raises several major challenges including (i) infinite-dimensional functional response data, (ii) complex spatial-temporal correlation structure, and (iii) complex spatial smoothness. To address these challenges, this article is to develop a functional mixed effects modeling (FMEM) framework to delineate the dynamic changes of diffusion properties along major fiber tracts and their association with a set of covariates of interest and the structure of the variability of these white matter tract properties in various longitudinal studies. Our FMEM consists of a functional mixed effects model for addressing all three challenges, an efficient method for spatially smoothing varying coefficient functions, an estimation method for estimating the spatial-temporal correlation structure, a test procedure with local and global test statistics for testing hypotheses of interest associated with functional response, and a simultaneous confidence band for quantifying the uncertainty in the estimated coefficient functions. Simulated data are used to evaluate the finite sample performance of FMEM and to demonstrate that FMEM significantly outperforms the standard pointwise mixed effects modeling approach. We apply FMEM to study the spatial-temporal dynamics of white-matter fiber tracts in a clinical study of neurodevelopment.

Prefrontal white matter impairment in substance users depends upon the catechol-o-methyl transferase (COMT) val158met polymorphism.

Individuals addicted to most chemical substances present with hypoactive dopaminergic systems as well as altered prefrontal white matter structure. Prefrontal dopaminergic tone is under genetic control and is influenced by and modulates descending cortico-striatal glutamatergic pathways that in turn, regulate striatal dopamine release. The catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene contains an evolutionarily recent and common functional variant at codon 108/158 (rs4680) that plays an important role in modulating prefrontal dopaminergic tone. To determine if the COMT val158met genotype influences white matter integrity (i.e., fractional anisotropy (FA)) in substance users, 126 healthy controls and 146 substance users underwent genotyping and magnetic resonance imaging. A general linear model with two between-subjects factors (COMT genotype and addiction status) was performed using whole brain diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to assess FA. A significant Genotype × Drug Use status interaction was found in the left prefrontal cortex. Post-hoc analysis showed reduced prefrontal FA only in Met/Met homozygotes who were also drug users. These data suggest that Met/Met homozygous individuals, in the context of addiction, have increased susceptibility to white matter structural alterations, which might contribute to previously identified structural and functional prefrontal cortical deficits in addiction.

Intrinsic resting-state activity predicts working memory brain activation and behavioral performance.

Although resting-state brain activity has been demonstrated to correspond with task-evoked brain activation, the relationship between intrinsic and evoked brain activity has not been fully characterized. For example, it is unclear whether intrinsic activity can also predict task-evoked deactivation and whether the rest-task relationship is dependent on task load. In this study, we addressed these issues on 40 healthy control subjects using resting-state and task-driven [N-back working memory (WM) task] functional magnetic resonance imaging data collected in the same session. Using amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) as an index of intrinsic resting-state activity, we found that ALFF in the middle frontal gyrus and inferior/superior parietal lobules was positively correlated with WM task-evoked activation, while ALFF in the medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, superior frontal gyrus, superior temporal gyrus, and fusiform gyrus was negatively correlated with WM task-evoked deactivation. Further, the relationship between the intrinsic resting-state activity and task-evoked activation in lateral/superior frontal gyri, inferior/superior parietal lobules, superior temporal gyrus, and midline regions was stronger at higher WM task loads. In addition, both resting-state activity and the task-evoked activation in the superior parietal lobule/precuneus were significantly correlated with the WM task behavioral performance, explaining similar portions of intersubject performance variance. Together, these findings suggest that intrinsic resting-state activity facilitates or is permissive of specific brain circuit engagement to perform a cognitive task, and that resting activity can predict subsequent task-evoked brain responses and behavioral performance.

Short-term meditation induces white matter changes in the anterior cingulate.

The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is part of a network implicated in the development of self-regulation and whose connectivity changes dramatically in development. In previous studies we showed that 3 h of mental training, based on traditional Chinese medicine (integrative body-mind training, IBMT), increases ACC activity and improves self-regulation. However, it is not known whether changes in white matter connectivity can result from small amounts of mental training. We here report that 11 h of IBMT increases fractional anisotropy (FA), an index indicating the integrity and efficiency of white matter in the corona radiata, an important white-matter tract connecting the ACC to other structures. Thus IBMT could provide a means for improving self-regulation and perhaps reducing or preventing various mental disorders.

Conceptualizing psychological resilience through resting-state functional MRI in a mentally healthy population: a systematic review.

Conceptualizations and operational definitions of psychological resilience vary across resilience neuroimaging studies. Data on the neural features of resilience among healthy individuals has been scarce. Furthermore, findings from resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies were inconsistent across studies. This systematic review summarized resting-state fMRI findings in different modalities from various operationally defined resilience in a mentally healthy population. The PubMed and MEDLINE databases were searched. Articles that focused on resting-state fMRI in relation to resilience, and published before 2022, were targeted. Orbitofrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, insula and amygdala, were reported the most from the 19 included studies. Regions in emotional network was reported the most from the included studies. The involvement of regions like amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex indicated the relationships between emotional processing and resilience. No common brain regions or neural pathways were identified across studies. The emotional network appears to be studied the most in association with resilience. Matching fMRI modalities and operational definitions of resilience across studies are essential for meta-analysis.

Effects of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex stimulation on network topological attributes in young individuals with high-level perceived stress: A randomized controlled trial.

Individuals with high-level perceived stress are at higher risk of developing a psychiatric disorder. While repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is effective for improving emotional symptoms, there is little evidence of its effect on perceived stress. This randomized sham-controlled trial investigated the effect of rTMS on ameliorating high-level stress and explored the associated changes in brain network activity. Fifty participants with high-level perceived stress were randomly assigned to either the active or sham rTMS group and received 12 active/sham rTMS sessions over four weeks (three per week). Perceived stress score (PSS), Chinese affective scale (CAS) normal and now statuses, and functional network topology were measured. Our results showed greater improvements in PSS and CAS_Normal scores, and reduced path length in the default mode network after active rTMS. Functional activations of the angular gyrus, posterior insula, and prefrontal cortex were also modulated in the active group. There were significant associations between posterior insula efficiency and PSS scores, and between angular efficiency and CAS_Now scores in the active group. These cumulative findings suggest rTMS as a promising intervention for recovery from high-level perceived stress.

Quantitative tract-based white matter development from birth to age 2years.

Few large-scale studies have been done to characterize the normal human brain white matter growth in the first years of life. We investigated white matter maturation patterns in major fiber pathways in a large cohort of healthy young children from birth to age two using diffusion parameters fractional anisotropy (FA), radial diffusivity (RD) and axial diffusivity (RD). Ten fiber pathways, including commissural, association and projection tracts, were examined with tract-based analysis, providing more detailed and continuous spatial developmental patterns compared to conventional ROI based methods. All DTI data sets were transformed to a population specific atlas with a group-wise longitudinal large deformation diffeomorphic registration approach. Diffusion measurements were analyzed along the major fiber tracts obtained in the atlas space. All fiber bundles show increasing FA values and decreasing radial and axial diffusivities during development in the first 2years of life. The changing rates of the diffusion indices are faster in the first year than the second year for all tracts. RD and FA show larger percentage changes in the first and second years than AD. The gender effects on the diffusion measures are small. Along different spatial locations of fiber tracts, maturation does not always follow the same speed. Temporal and spatial diffusion changes near cortical regions are in general smaller than changes in central regions. Overall developmental patterns revealed in our study confirm the general rules of white matter maturation. This work shows a promising framework to study and analyze white matter maturation in a tract-based fashion. Compared to most previous studies that are ROI-based, our approach has the potential to discover localized development patterns associated with fiber tracts of interest.

White matter heritability using diffusion tensor imaging in neonatal brains.

Understanding genetic and environmental effects on white matter development in the first years of life is of great interest, as it provides insights into the etiology of neurodevelopmental disorders. In this study, the genetic and environmental effects on white matter were estimated using data from 173 neonatal twin subjects. Diffusion tensor imaging scans were acquired around 40 days after birth and were non-rigidly registered to a group-specific atlas and parcellated into 98 ROIs. A model of additive genetic, and common and specific environmental variance components was used to estimate overall and regional genetic and environmental contributions to diffusion parameters of fractional anisotropy, radial diffusivity, and axial diffusivity. Correlations between the regional heritability values and diffusion parameters were also examined. Results indicate that individual differences in overall white matter microstructure, represented by the average diffusion parameters over the whole brain, are heritable, and estimates are higher than found in studies in adults. Estimates of genetic and environmental variance components vary considerably across different white matter regions. Significant positive correlations between radial diffusivity heritability and radial diffusivity values are consistent with regional genetic variation being modulated by maturation status in the neonatal brain: the more mature the region is, the less genetic variation it shows. Common environmental effects are present in a few regions that tend to be characterized by low radial diffusivity. Results from the joint diffusion parameter analysis suggest that multivariate modeling approaches might be promising to better estimate maturation status and its relationship with genetic and environmental effects.

Factors underlying prefrontal and insula structural alterations in smokers.

Based upon previous reports of alterations in white matter integrity and gray matter density in smokers, we examined these markers in a large, well-matched sample of smokers and non-smokers. We further investigated the effect of heavy cigarette exposure by using pack-years and the effects of two relatively stable, highly heritable traits in smokers (Fagerström Test of Nicotine Dependence (FTND), a measure of severity of nicotine dependence and Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), a stable personality trait related to smoking). Forty-eight nicotine-dependent subjects and 48 matched controls were included in the analyses, with smokers also subdivided into high/low dependence and high/low pack-years smokers. White matter integrity (fractional anisotropy (FA)) and gray matter density (voxel-based morphometry (VBM)) were measured and compared across groups. Gray matter density was lower in left prefrontal cortex (PFC) in high pack-years smokers and was inversely related to pack-years. In contrast, left insular cortex gray matter density was higher in smokers and associated with TAS-20 total score and with difficulty-identifying-feelings factor. Further, the most highly dependent smokers showed lower prefrontal FA, which was negatively correlated with FTND. There was no correlation between pack-years and FTND in our smoker population. These data suggest chronic tobacco use is correlated with prefrontal gray matter damage , while differences in insula gray matter and PFC white matter appear to reflect stable and heritable differences between smokers and non-smokers.

Anatomical differences and network characteristics underlying smoking cue reactivity.

A distributed network of brain regions is linked to drug-related cue responding. However, the relationships between smoking cue-induced phasic activity and possible underlying differences in brain structure, tonic neuronal activity and connectivity between these brain areas are as yet unclear. Twenty-two smokers and 22 controls viewed smoking-related and neutral pictures during a functional arterial spin labeling scanning session. T1, resting functional, and diffusion tensor imaging data were also collected. Six brain areas, dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), dorsal anterior cingulate cortex/cingulate cortex, rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC), occipital cortex, and insula/operculum, showed significant smoking cue-elicited activity in smokers when compared with controls and were subjected to secondary analysis for resting state functional connectivity (rsFC), structural, and tonic neuronal activity. rsFC strength between rACC and dlPFC was positively correlated with the cue-elicited activity in dlPFC. Similarly, rsFC strength between dlPFC and dmPFC was positively correlated with the cue-elicited activity in dmPFC while rsFC strength between dmPFC and insula/operculum was negatively correlated with the cue-elicited activity in both dmPFC and insula/operculum, suggesting these brain circuits may facilitate the response to the salient smoking cues. Further, the gray matter density in dlPFC was decreased in smokers and correlated with cue-elicited activity in the same brain area, suggesting a neurobiological mechanism for the impaired cognitive control associated with drug use. Taken together, these results begin to address the underlying neurobiology of smoking cue salience, and may speak to novel treatment strategies and targets for therapeutic interventions.

The efficacy of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) for young individuals with high-level perceived stress: study protocol for a randomized sham-controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: High level of perceived stress may result in negative effects both psychologically and physically on individuals and may predispose onset of mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder. However, there is no suitable intervention for it. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) studies have shown its therapeutic efficacy in treatment resistant patients with stress-related disorders. Here we describe an exploratory study protocol to investigate the effect of the intervention for the individuals with high level of stress. METHOD: This is a single blinded, randomized sham-controlled trial, targeting at young healthy adults aging from 18 to 24 years old. Forty eligible volunteers will be recruited and randomly divided into active and sham rTMS group. All subjects will take a set of neuropsychological and biological assessments and MRI scanning before and right after the intervention. During the interventional period, 12-session stimulations will be performed in 4 weeks with three sessions per week. The primary outcome will detect the difference of Chinese 14-item perceived stress scales between active and sham rTMS groups after intervention. Secondary outcomes will examine the differences of other affective measurements, level of cortisol, and MRI-derived neural functional measures between the two groups after intervention. DISCUSSION: This trial aims to examine the effect of the 12-session rTMS intervention on individuals with high level of perceived stress. Positive or negative findings from any of the outcome measures would further our understanding of the efficacy of the stimulation and its neural impact. If effective, it would provide an evidence for a new treatment for high perceived stress. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Chinese Clinical Trial Registry ( ChiCTR1900027662 ). Registered on 23 November 2019. And all items of the WHO Trial Registry Data set can be found within the protocol.

Integrative psycho-biophysiological markers in predicting psychological resilience.

The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) and parasympathetic nervous systems have been reported to play important roles in emotion regulation and stress coping. Yet, their direct relationship with psychological resilience remains unclear. These biophysiological features should be considered together with the traditional psychometric properties in studying resilience more comprehensively. The current study aimed to examine the role of these systems during a laboratory stress task and to determine the prediction power of resilience by combining psychological and biophysiological features. One hundred and seven (52 females) university students without psychiatric disorders underwent the Trier Social Stress Task (TSST). Psychometric properties of resilience were measured at rest; vagal heart rate variability (HRV), salivary cortisol, and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) levels were captured at baseline, during, and after TSST. Multivariate linear regression as well as support vector regression machine-learning analyses were performed to investigate significant predictors and the prediction power of resilience. Results showed that positive and negative affects, HRV during the anticipatory phase of stress, and the ratio of cortisol/DHEA at the first recovery time point were significant predictors of resilience. The addition of biophysiological features increased the prediction power of resilience by 1.2-fold compared to psychological features alone. Results from machine learning analyses further demonstrated that the increased prediction power of resilience by adding the ratio of cortisol/DHEA was significant in "cortisol responders"; whereas a trend level was observed in "cortisol non-responders". Our findings extend the knowledge from the literature that high vagal activity during the anticipating phase of stress and the ability to restore the balance between cortisol and DHEA after a stress event could be an important feature in predicting resilience. Our findings also further support the need of combining psychological and biophysiological features in studying/predicting resilience.

A role of the lateral prefrontal cortex in the congruency sequence effect revealed by transcranial direct current stimulation.

Congruency effect is the increase in response time when relevant and irrelevant cues indicate incongruent rather than congruent responses. The congruency effect is smaller in the trial after an incongruent trial than after a congruent trial: this difference is known as the congruency sequence effect (CSE). Psychophysical and neural studies have suggested that the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) and the medial prefrontal cortex are associated with the CSE. In the present study, we applied anodal and cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation, which is thought to result in excitation and inhibition, respectively, on the LPFC, while human participants were performing a flanker task. We found that the CSE was increased under cathodal stimulation (inhibition) of the LPFC. Moreover, the LPFC stimulation modulated the congruency effect after a congruent trial. Further analyses suggested that the results cannot be explained by any of the currently prevailing hypotheses of the CSE, including the conflict monitoring hypothesis, feature integration hypothesis, and temporal learning account. Based on our findings, we propose that a new distinct mechanism might be involved in the CSE. Specifically, the LPFC might contribute to the CSE by maintaining the attention to the task-relevant information, which is an endogenous goal-oriented function and reduces the carry-over of the task-irrelevant information after a congruent trial.