Aggression and anger are linked to an inability to adequately process social information and to regulate particularly negative emotions [1]. Reduced prefrontal brain activity and connectivity have been linked to emotion regulation deficits and increased aggressive and violent behavior [2]. Such dysfunctional brain processing might further increase the propensity to commit violent, criminal offences. Due to its potential to modulate brain activation and connectivity, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has been tested as a promising tool to counteract the aforementioned prefrontal hypoactivity. Specifically, anodal tDCS over the prefrontal cortex has demonstrated significant effects for improving emotion regulation [3] and reducing behavioral aggression in healthy controls [4]. However, the neural correlates of these beneficial effects remain unclear and the results must be replicated and validated in samples with particularly aggressive participants, such as criminal offenders. The current study was set up to tackle these two issues and increase our understanding on behavioral and neuronal tDCS effects on emotion regulation. Our main goal was to test the feasibility of prefrontal tDCS to improve emotion regulation in a group of criminal offenders and to further assess respective neural correlates of this effect via preand post-tDCS fMRI measurements (see Fig. 1B).

中文翻译：

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刺激犯罪大脑：前额叶 tDCS 对犯罪者和控制者的不同影响

攻击性和愤怒与无法充分处理社会信息和调节特别是负面情绪有关 [1]。前额叶大脑活动和连通性的减少与情绪调节缺陷以及攻击性和暴力行为的增加有关 [2]。这种功能失调的大脑处理可能会进一步增加实施暴力犯罪的倾向。由于其调节大脑激活和连接的潜力，经颅直流电刺激 (tDCS) 已被测试为抵消上述前额叶活动减退的有前途的工具。具体而言，前额叶皮层上的阳极 tDCS 已证明对改善情绪调节 [3] 和减少健康对照 [4] 的行为攻击具有显着影响。然而，这些有益影响的神经相关性仍不清楚，必须在具有特别激进参与者（例如刑事罪犯）的样本中复制和验证结果。目前的研究旨在解决这两个问题，并增加我们对行为和神经元 tDCS 对情绪调节的影响的理解。我们的主要目标是测试前额叶 tDCS 改善一组罪犯情绪调节的可行性，并通过 tDCS 前后 fMRI 测量进一步评估这种效果的各自神经相关性（见图 1B）。目前的研究旨在解决这两个问题，并增加我们对行为和神经元 tDCS 对情绪调节的影响的理解。我们的主要目标是测试前额叶 tDCS 改善一组罪犯情绪调节的可行性，并通过 tDCS 前后 fMRI 测量进一步评估这种效果的各自神经相关性（见图 1B）。目前的研究旨在解决这两个问题，并增加我们对行为和神经元 tDCS 对情绪调节的影响的理解。我们的主要目标是测试前额叶 tDCS 改善一组罪犯情绪调节的可行性，并通过 tDCS 前后 fMRI 测量进一步评估这种效果的各自神经相关性（见图 1B）。