The potentiation of neural activity in lateral prefrontal regions via transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) can reduce patterns of biased attention for threat and may facilitate intentional emotion regulation. The current study sought to determine whether left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex tDCS, in combination with intentional down-regulation of emotional responses would reduce negative appraisals of aversive content during emotional regulation (assessed during online tDCS), reduce patterns of biased attention and attention bias variability (assessed offline), and attenuate spontaneous (uninstructed) emotional reactivity to negative content (assessed offline) above tDCS or intentional down-regulation of emotions in isolation. Healthy participants (n = 116) were allocated to one of four experimental conditions involving either active or sham tDCS, combined with an either a down-regulate or maintain emotion regulation task. Attention bias/bias variability was assessed with an attentional probe task, and emotional reactivity was assessed in a negative video viewing task. tDCS did not affect the appraisals of negative stimuli during emotion regulation, and there were no effects on attention bias/bias variability. However, tDCS did attenuate emotional reactivity. Those receiving active stimulation showed smaller elevations in negative mood in response to viewing aversive video content compared with sham. The present findings are consistent with the potential of left frontal tDCS to attenuate negative emotional reactions to aversive content but provide no support for tDCS enhancement of emotion regulation, nor its impact on attention bias or attention bias variability.

通过经颅直流电刺激 (tDCS) 增强外侧前额叶区域的神经活动可以减少对威胁的偏见注意力模式，并可能促进有意的情绪调节。目前的研究试图确定左背外侧前额叶皮层 tDCS 是否与情绪反应的有意下调相结合，是否会减少情绪调节期间对厌恶内容的负面评价（在在线 tDCS 期间进行评估），减少偏向注意力的模式和注意力偏差变异性。离线评估），并减弱对 tDCS 以上的负面内容（离线评估）的自发（无指导）情绪反应或孤立地有意下调情绪。健康参与者 (n = 116) 被分配到四个实验条件之一，涉及主动或假 tDCS，结合下调或维持情绪调节任务。注意力偏差/偏差变异性通过注意力探测任务进行评估，情绪反应在负面视频观看任务中进行评估。tDCS 不影响情绪调节过程中负面刺激的评估，并且对注意力偏差/偏差变异性没有影响。然而，tDCS 确实减弱了情绪反应。与假动作相比，那些接受主动刺激的人在观看厌恶的视频内容时，消极情绪的升高幅度较小。