@article{ref1,
title="A comparison of the effects of transcranial direct current stimulation and caffeine on vigilance and cognitive performance during extended wakefulness",
journal="Brain stimulation",
year="2014",
author="McIntire, Lindsey K. and McKinley, R. Andy and Goodyear, Chuck and Nelson, Justin",
volume="7",
number="4",
pages="499-507",
abstract="BACKGROUND: Sleep deprivation from extended duty hours is a common complaint for many occupations. Caffeine is one of the most common countermeasures used to combat fatigue. However, the benefits of caffeine decline over time and with chronic use. <br><br>OBJECTIVE: Our objective was to evaluate the efficacy of anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) applied to the pre-frontal cortex at 2 mA for 30 min to remediate the effects of sleep deprivation and to compare the behavioral effects of tDCS with those of caffeine. <br><br>METHODS: Three groups of 10 participants each received either active tDCS with placebo gum, caffeine gum with sham tDCS, or sham tDCS with placebo gum during 30 h of extended wakefulness. <br><br>RESULTS: Our results show that tDCS prevented a decrement in vigilance and led to better subjective ratings for fatigue, drowsiness, energy, and composite mood compared to caffeine and control in sleep-deprived individuals. Both the tDCS and caffeine produced similar improvements in latencies on a short-term memory task and faster reaction times in a psychomotor task when compared to the placebo group. Interestingly, changes in accuracy for the tDCS group were not correlated to changes in mood; whereas, there was a relationship for the caffeine and sham groups. <br><br>CONCLUSION: Our data suggest that tDCS could be a useful fatigue countermeasure and may be more beneficial than caffeine since boosts in performance and mood last several hours.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="1935-861X",
doi="10.1016/j.brs.2014.04.008",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.brs.2014.04.008"
}