Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) is a noninvasive tool for improving attention. But the impact of tDCS on attention enhancement is not yet well understood. The main goal of this paper is using Event Related Potentials (ERPs) to assess the impact of tDCS on brain activity during an attentional task. Thirteen subjects (6 males and 7 females, with mean age 24.53±4.5), participated in this study. tDCS was used to stimulate Dorso Lateral Prefrontal Cortex (DLPFC) in the left hemisphere of subjects for 5 consecutive days. Immediately before and after the tDCS sessions, the subjects performed the Integrated Visual and Auditory-Adult Edition (IVA-AE) task while behavioral (reaction time) and neurophysiological (ERP) responses were measured. Specifically, the amplitude of P600 was compared before and after stimulation. tDCS to the DLPFC led to a significant improvement in reaction time and an increase in visual P600 amplitude (p<0.05). Also, the percent changes of P600 amplitude during visual target stimulation was significantly correlated with the percent changes of reaction time to visual targets (r= -0.704, p=0.007). This is the first study to assess the tDCS effect on cognitive function by the biomarker extraction in the IVA task.The role of ERP in conflict-related tasks was found; tDCS applied over the DLPFC modulates executive function especially in visual attention during the IVA-AE task, as shown by an enhancement of visual P600 amplitude. Therefore, cognitive processing especially visual attention can be enhanced by using tDCS.
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