Online Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation of Dorsomedial and Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex in Cognition Decision Making, and Cognitive Dissonance

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a powerful method for revealing causal links between specific brain regions and cognitive functions. While offline TMS has traditionally dominated cognitive neuroscience research, online repetitive TMS (rTMS) presents undoubted advantages, enabling stimulation concurrent with task performance. Leveraging advancements in this stimulation method, the study introduces a novel online rTMS protocol utilizing neuronavigation and robotic systems to precisely target dorsolateral and dorsomedial prefrontal cortices during an experimental procedure. Moreover, the utility of online rTMS in investigating the neural mechanisms underlying cognitive dissonance and neurochronometry of the choice-induced preference change was explored. For that purpose, a protocol for the high-frequency online rTMS was applied during the procedure with a within-subject blocked design and two control conditions. The study leads to principal conclusions for future TMS research, such as the importance of a proper set of time, location, and parameters of the stimulation, electric field modulation, and appropriate control conditions.