The effect of bilateral transcranial direct current stimulation on early auditory processing in schizophrenia: a preliminary study.

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) was applied bilaterally over the auditory cortex in 12 schizophrenia patients to modulate early auditory processing. Performance on a tone discrimination task (tone-matching task-TMT) and auditory mismatch negativity were assessed after counterbalanced anodal, cathodal, and sham tDCS. Cathodal stimulation improved TMT performance (p < 0.03) compared to sham condition. Post-hoc analyses revealed a stimulation condition by negative symptom interaction in which greater negative symptoms were associated with a better TMT performance after anodal tDCS.