Stopping an already initiated action is crucial for human everyday behavior and empirical evidence points toward the prefrontal cortex playing a key role in response inhibition. Two regions that have been consistently implicated in response inhibition are the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and the more superior region of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). The present study targets both regions with non-invasive brain stimulation to investigate their role in response inhibition. Thus dual-prefrontal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) was applied to both IFG and DLPFC in a repeated measures design and compared to sham tDCS. Specifically, 9 cm² electrodes were positioned over both IFG and DLPFC in all groups. The active stimulation groups received off-line, anodal or cathodal tDCS over the IFG and opposite polarity tDCS of the DLPFC, while the sham stimulation group received short stimulation at the start, middle and end of the supposed 20-min stimulation period. Before and after tDCS, subjects’ inhibition capabilities were probed using the stop-signal task (SST). In a final sample of N = 45, participants were randomly split into three groups and received three different stimulation protocols. Results indicated that dual-frontal tDCS did not influence performance as compared to sham stimulation. This null result was confirmed using Bayesian analysis. This result is discussed against the background of the limitations of the present study as well as the potential theoretical implications.

停止已经采取的行动对于人类的日常行为至关重要，经验证据表明前额叶皮层在反应抑制中起关键作用。一直牵涉到反应抑制的两个区域是右下额回（IFG）和背外侧前额叶皮层（DLPFC）的更优越区域。本研究针对非侵入性脑刺激的两个区域，以研究它们在反应抑制中的作用。因此，在重复测量设计中，将双前额经颅直流电刺激（tDCS）应用于IFG和DLPFC，并与假tDCS进行了比较。具体来说，9 cm ²在所有组中，将电极放置在IFG和DLPFC上。主动刺激组在IFG上接受离线，阳极或阴极tDCS，而DLPFC的极性相反，则在假想刺激组的20分钟刺激开始，中期和结束时接受短刺激。在tDCS之前和之后，使用停止信号任务（SST）探究受试者的抑制能力。在N的最终样本中 = 45，参与者被随机分为三组，并接受三种不同的刺激方案。结果表明，与假刺激相比，双额tDCS不会影响性能。使用贝叶斯分析确认了该无效结果。在本研究的局限性以及潜在的理论意义的背景下讨论了这一结果。