ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate whether modulating the activation of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex(DLPFC) by transcranial direct current stimulation(tDCS) can influence emotional perception. Meth-ods Seventy-eight undergraduates were randomly divided into four groups by simple random sampling meth-od. TDCS (1. 5 mA) noninvasive technique was used to test group 1 (n=23) for 3 minutes to intervene in DLPFC,group 2 (n=17) for 15 minutes to intervene in DLPFC,group 3 (n=20) for 3 minutes to intervene in primary visual cortex,and group 4 (n=18) for non-emotional picture test. The data were analyzed with re-peated measurement variance analysis. Results (1) The interaction between short-term(3 min) stimula-tion of tDCS and facial expression was statistically significant (F(1,22)=7. 448,P=0. 012). There was signifi- cant difference in positive face perception (before:70. 58%,period:74. 75%,P=0. 036) and no significant difference in negative face perception (before:70. 58%,period:70. 73%,P=0. 569). (2) There was no sig-nificant difference in the correlation between prolonged tDCS stimulation(15 min) and face expression recog-nition ( F (1,16)= 1. 621, P=0. 221). (3) The primary visual cortex was not affected by anodal tDCS (F(1,19)<1,P>0. 05). (4) There was no significant difference in the interaction between tDCS and facial ex-pression (F(1,17)=2. 566,P=0. 128) when visual stimulus was changed to non-expressive faces. Conclu-sions By applying tDCS technique,the present findings suggest that modulating DLPFC can influence emo-tional face perception,and support the valence-specific lateralization of emotional perception.