Treatment studies? We are currently engaged in testing the ability of transcranial direct current brain polarization to modulate frontal lobe activity. Ongoing studies in this area are on (1) emotion-based decision making and response to arousing stimuli and (2) enhancing verbal memory and other forms of learning.? ? Neurophysiological probe studies? We have successfully shown changes in the motor cortex response to transcranial magnetic stimulation that are linked to the expecting and receiving money reward. This is the first demonstration of reward related activity in the motor cortex and links the motor cortex conceptually with other frontal areas involved in response generation and selection. This year, we have shown that this effect is lacking in Parkinson disease patients and can be restored with antiparkinsonian medications. ? ? Collaborative work? With support from a DARPA program on accelerated learning, we are collaborating with investigators at the MIND Institute at the University of New Mexico on using DC brain polarization to shorten the time required to attain behavioral and neuroimaging endpoints for expert status on threat recognition tasks. In Phase I of this project, we have met DARPA 2X metrics for acceleration of threat detection learning.
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