Bridging the Gap Between Neurocognitive Insights and the Addiction Clinic: The Effects and Underlying Mechanisms of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation in Substance Use Disorder

Individuals with a substance use disorder often report difficulties to stop using drugs despite the obvious negative consequences and a strong willingness to quit this use. This concept has been explained by a hyperactive reward system and hypoactive control system of the brain (i.e. prefrontal cortex; PFC), as the result of repeated and prolonged drug use. The central aim of this dissertation was to investigate whether non-invasive electrical brain stimulation, in the form of transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS), applied over the PFC would be beneficial in the treatment of addiction by reducing substance use and craving. Furthermore, this dissertation explored if tDCS modulates behavioural and neurophysiological measures of executive functions associated with the control system, to get better insights in the working mechanism of tDCS in addiction treatment.

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