Abstract
Social deficits are core to autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Current treatments are extremely time- and labor-intensive. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) may be a promising treatment modality to safely enhance treatments targeting social cognition and social skills. This pilot study investigates the effectiveness of social skills treatment interventions paired with anodal tDCS for six adults 18–58 years with ASD. Differences were predicted on the verbal fluency (VF) test and a test of social skills (TASSK-M) for verum (2.0 mA) vs. sham tDCS, which was randomly assigned in a within-subjects, double-blinded design in adults with ASD with normal or higher cognitive functioning. The anode electrode was placed over right temporoparietal (CP6) and cathode over ipsilateral deltoid. Wilcoxon signed-rank tests for paired data indicated that participants received a significantly higher score on the VF test after receiving verum tDCS compared to sham tDCS, with no significant differences found on the TASSK-M. Post-hoc analysis showed that the emotion-word portion of the VF test, specifically, indicated significant differences when comparing verum to sham tDCS conditions. These findings provide optimism for the use of tDCS as delivered in the current study paired with social skills treatment interventions for ASD, particularly for improving skills of emotion verbal fluency.
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Abbreviations
- tDCS:
-
Transcranial direct current stimulation
- ASD:
-
Autism spectrum disorder
- rTPJ:
-
Right temporoparietal junction
- TMS:
-
Transcranial magnetic stimulation
- DLPFC:
-
Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
- AQ:
-
Autism quotient
- VF:
-
Verbal fluency
- ToM:
-
Theory of mind
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Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the assistance of Kristen Fedesco and Christopher M. Garcia whose respective assistance with participant recruitment and technology management made this study possible. Funding: this work was supported in part by funding from the University of New Mexico’s Graduate Student Professional Association. Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-mission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC., a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International, Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525. Opinions expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the U.S. Government.
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Esse Wilson, J., Trumbo, M.C., Wilson, J.K. et al. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) for social cognition and social skills in adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). J Neural Transm 125, 1857–1866 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00702-018-1938-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00702-018-1938-5