Effectiveness of Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation on Inhibitory Control and Impulsivity in Nicotine-dependent Individuals

Technology-based interventions, such as electrical brain stimulation may be effective in the cognitive and personality processes of substance abusers, including nicotine dependents.

We conducted this study to investigate the effectiveness of transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) using alpha frequency on inhibitory control and impulsivity in nicotine-dependent individuals.

We used a pre-test/post-test/follow-up quasi-experimental design with control and sham groups. We selected 30 eligible nicotine addicts from Mashhad using the available sampling method and randomly divided the subjects into three groups. We applied the intervention in eight sessions for 20 minutes in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex for the first group, fake interventions for the second group, and no intervention for the third group. The Fagerström questionnaire, Barrett impulsivity questionnaire, and go-no-go task were used to collect data. After eight sessions, people’s inhibitory control and impulsivity were evaluated and analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA). Also, after two months, we evaluated inhibitory control data with repeated-measures analysis of variance.

The effectiveness of alpha-tACS intervention on short- and long-term inhibitory control was significantly different in the experimental group compared to other groups (P=0.001). There was no significant difference between these three groups in impulsivity (P=0.700).

Alpha-tACS intervention effectively increases inhibitory control in nicotine-dependent individuals but does not explicitly affect their impulsivity.