Cognitive enhancement or cognitive cost: trait-specific outcomes of brain stimulation in the case of mathematics anxiety
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The surge in noninvasive brain stimulation studies investigating cognitive enhancement has neglected the effect of interindividual differences, such as traits, on stimulation outcomes. Using the case of mathematics anxiety in a sample of healthy human participants in a placebo-controlled, double-blind, crossover experiment, we show that identical transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) exerts opposite behavioral and physiological effects depending on individual trait levels. Mathematics anxiety is the negative emotional response elicited by numerical tasks, impairing mathematical achievement. tDCS was applied to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a frequent target for modulating emotional regulation. It improved reaction times on simple arithmetic decisions and decreased cortisol concentrations (a biomarker of stress) in high mathematics anxiety individuals. In contrast, tDCS impaired reaction times for low mathematics anxiety individuals and prevented a decrease in cortisol concentration compared with sham stimulation. Both groups showed a tDCS-induced side effect-impaired executive control in a flanker task-a cognitive function subserved by the stimulated region. These behavioral and physiological double dissociations have implications for brain stimulation research by highlighting the role of individual traits in experimental findings. Brain stimulation clearly does not produce uniform benefits, even applied in the same configuration during the same tasks, but may interact with traits to produce markedly opposed outcomes.
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Inter-individual differences in traits, which may be associated with differences in baseline neural states, have been shown to affect the benefits or costs of brain stimulation.
“Inter-individual differences in traits, which may be associated with differences in baseline neural states, have in fact shown to affect the benefits or costs of brain stimulation.”
From Cognitive Neuroscience of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Its Clinical Translation (2018) · cites this paper as Sarkar et al., 2014
Subjects with high mathematical anxiety benefited in their reaction time to mathematical tasks with tDCS over DLPFC, while those with low mathematical anxiety had an impairment in reaction times; both groups became worse in an interference inhibition task.
“For example, subjects with high mathematical anxiety benefited in their reaction time to mathematical tasks with tDCS over DLPFC, while those with low mathematical anxiety had an impairment in reaction times. Also, both groups became worse in an interference inhibition task (Sarkar et al., 2014),”
From Cognitive Neuroscience of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Its Clinical Translation (2018) · cites this paper as Sarkar et al., 2014
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“Also, both groups became worse in an interference inhibition task (Sarkar et al., 2014), which could possibly reflect a negative effect of tDCS of DLPFC on the neighboring IFC region which mediates interference inhibition.”
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- Authors
- Sarkar, A., Dowker, A., & Cohen Kadosh, R.
- Affiliations
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Venue
- The Journal of Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Society for Neuroscience
- Published
- 2014-12-10
- Volume
- 34
- Issue
- 50
- Pages
- 16605-16610
- ISSN
- 0270-6474 (ISSN-L)
- 1529-2401
- PMC
- PMC4261089
- OpenAlex
- W2085626196
- Cited by
- 195
- References
- 36
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 14 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 16 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 23 · 2020: 22 · 2019: 15 · 2018: 20 · 2017: 26 · 2016: 17 · 2015: 18 · 2014: 1
- FWCI
- 10.73
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Journal of Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Wellcome Trust (WT 88378)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Neurology › Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Studies
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Statistics and Probability › Cognitive and developmental aspects of mathematical skills
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Keywords
- mathematics anxiety, transcranial direct current stimulation, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, individual differences, cortisol, stress response, executive function, flanker task, arithmetic performance, emotion regulation, placebo effect
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Anxiety, Cognition, Double-Blind Method, Female, Humans, Male, Mathematics, Reaction Time, Cross-Over Studies, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, Young Adult
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