Neuroscience 183 (2011) 64 –70
TRANSCRANIAL DIRECT CURRENT STIMULATION OVER BROCA’S
REGION IMPROVES PHONEMIC AND SEMANTIC FLUENCY IN
HEALTHY INDIVIDUALS
Z. CATTANEO,* A. PISONI AND C. PAPAGNO
Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy
Abstract—Previous studies have demonstrated that transcra-
nial direct current stimulation (tDCS) can be proficiently used
to modulate attentional and cognitive functions. For instance,
in the language domain there is evidence that tDCS can
fasten picture naming in both healthy individuals and aphasic
patients, or improve grammar learning. In this study, we
investigated whether tDCS can be used to increase healthy
subjects’ performance in phonemic and semantic fluency
tasks, that are typically used in clinical assessment of lan-
guage. Ten healthy individuals performed a semantic and a
phonemic fluency task following anodal tDCS applied over
Broca’s region. Each participant underwent a real and a sham
tDCS session. Participants were found to produce more
words following real anodal tDCS both in the phonemic and
in the semantic fluency. Control experiments ascertained that
this finding did not depend upon unspecific effects of tDCS
over levels of general arousal or attention or upon partici-
pants’ expectations. These data confirm the efficacy of tDCS
in transiently improving language functions by showing that
anodal stimulation of Broca’s region can enhance verbal
fluency. Implications of these results for the treatment of
language functions in aphasia are considered. © 2011 IBRO.
Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Key words: tDCS, Broca’s region, verbal fluency, language
functions, aphasia rehabilitation.
Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a stimula-
tion technique that can be used to modulate spontaneous
cortical activity in the human brain (e.g. Been et al., 2007;
Hamilton et al., 2011; Fregni and Pascual-Leone, 2007;
Miniussi et al., 2008; Nitsche et al., 2008; Paulus, 2003;
Priori, 2003; Utz et al., 2010, for reviews). The effects of
stimulation depend on the polarity of the current flow, with
brain excitability being usually increased by anodal tDCS
and decreased by cathodal tDCS (Liebetanz et al., 2002),
although the effects of cathodal tDCS are more controver-
sial (see for instance Monti et al., 2007). Crucially, the
cortical excitability alterations can last for over an hour
after the end of stimulation (Nitsche and Paulus, 2001). In
the past few years, many studies have underlined the
potential of tDCS as a clinical tool for rehabilitating specific
attentional and cognitive functions in brain-damaged pa-
tients (e.g. Hummel et al., 2006; Priori et al., 2009; Schlaug
*Corresponding author. Tel: ⫹39-02-64483843; fax: ⫹39-02-64483706.
E-mail address: zaira.cattaneo@unimib.it (Z. Cattaneo).
Abbreviations: rTMS, repetitive TMS; tDCS, transcranial direct current
stimulation; TMS, transcranial magnetic stimulation.
0306-4522/11 $ - see front matter © 2011 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.neuroscience.2011.03.058
64
et al., 2008), and there is evidence that tDCS may be
effective in the treatment of pain syndromes and depres-
sion (e.g. Antal et al., 2010; Brunoni et al., 2010; for
reviews, see Lefaucheur et al., 2008; Lima and Fregni,
2008; Nitsche et al., 2009; Murphy et al., 2009; Utz et al.,
2010).
Previous studies have shown tDCS to improve lan-
guage functions. For instance, anodal tDCS over both
Wernicke’s area (Sparing et al., 2008) and the left dorso-
lateral prefrontal cortex (see Fertonani et al., 2010) re-
sulted in shorter naming latencies in healthy subjects.
Similar results have been reported in aphasic patients after
anodal tDCS over the left frontal cortex (Baker et al., 2010;
Fridriksson et al., 2011; see also Monti et al., 2008 for
naming improvement in aphasic patients after cathodal
stimulation of Broca’s region). Anodal tDCS over Wer-
nicke’s area has also been found to facilitate associative
learning as compared to sham stimulation in neurologically
unimpaired individuals (Floel et al., 2008). These results
sum up with those obtained using transcranial magnetic
stimulation (TMS) (for a review, see Devlin and Watkins,
2007) and demonstrate that brain stimulation is effective in
modulating language functions, highlighting the potential
clinical applications of TMS and tDCS for language reha-
bilitation post-stroke. Indeed, TMS has allowed to clarify
the role of different subregions of the Broca’s area in
phonological, semantic and syntactic processing (Choui-
nard et al., 2009; Devlin et al., 2003; Gough et al., 2005;
Romero Lauro et al., 2008; Nixon et al., 2004; Sakai et al.,
2002). TMS has also shed light on the functions of Wer-
nicke’s area: for instance, low-frequency repetitive TMS
(rTMS) over Wernicke’s area was found to speedup the
response to a task tapping on native language perception
in healthy volunteers (Andoh et al., 2006). Significant
shortening of picture naming latencies was observed after
single-pulse TMS over Wernicke’s area (Mottaghy et al.,
2006). In patients with chronic post-stroke aphasia, excit-
atory rTMS applied to the affected Broca’s area improved
language skills (Szaflarski et al., 2011), and there is now
consistent evidence that suppressing the right-hemi-
spheric Broca homologue through low frequency rTMS
facilitate recovery of language functions in post-stroke
aphasic patients (e.g. Barwood et al., in press; Weiduschat
et al., 2011; see Naeser et al., 2010, for a review).
Here we investigated whether anodal tDCS over the
left inferior frontal gyrus (Broca’s region: left BA 44/45) can
be used to increase verbal fluency in neurologically unim-
paired individuals. Verbal fluency tasks are short tests in
which participants are asked to generate as many words
 Z. Cattaneo et al. / Neuroscience 183 (2011) 64 –70
as possible from a semantic category (e.g. words design-
ing “animals” or “fruits”) or beginning with a specific letter
within a limited period of time, and are commonly used in
clinical practice to investigate the semantic and phonolog-
ical processes central to speech production (Lezak, 1995).
Earlier findings suggest that anodal tDCS over the left
prefrontal cortex may improve performance in a letter cue
word generation task (Iyer et al., 2005), but no study so far
has investigated the effect of anodal tDCS on semantic
fluency.
Specifically, here we compared the effect of anodal
tDCS and sham tDCS over Broca’s region within the same
group of neurologically unimpaired subjects undergoing
both a phonemic and a semantic verbal fluency task. Al-
though phonemic and semantic fluencies involve partially
different neural networks (e.g. Birn et al., 2010; Gourovitch
et al., 2000), the inferior frontal gyrus is critically involved in
both tasks (see Costafreda et al., 2006, for a review).
Hence, we expect anodal tDCS over this region to signif-
icantly improve word generation following both semantic
and phonological cues. A spatial detection task was also
administered after stimulation to exclude that possible ef-
fects of anodal tDCS on verbal fluency depended in fact
upon unspecific effects of tDCS over levels of general
arousal or attention. Finally, a further experiment was car-
ried on different healthy volunteers to rule out possible
confounding effects due to participants’ expectations.
EXPERIMENT 1
Method
Participants. Ten neurologically unimpaired individuals
(four Males, mean age 23.6 years, SD⫽3.2) took part in the
experiment. All participants were native Italian speaker under-
graduate students; they were naive as to the experimental proce-
dure, and the purpose of the study. All subjects were right-handed
(as assessed by means of the Edinburgh Inventory Questionnaire,
Oldfield, 1971) and with normal or corrected-to-normal vision.
They had no history of chronic or acute neurologic, psychiatric, or
medical disease; no family history of epilepsy; no current preg-
nancy; no cardiac pacemaker; no previous surgery involving im-
plants to the head (cochlear implants, aneurysm clips, brain elec-
trodes); and did not take acute or chronic medication. Written
informed consent was obtained from all participants. The experi-
ment was approved by the local ethical committee of the Univer-
sity of Milano-Bicocca and subjects were treated in accordance
with the Declaration of Helsinki.
tDCS. tDCS was delivered by a battery driven, constant
current stimulator (Eldith, Neuroconn, Ilmenau, Germany) through
a pair of saline-soaked sponge electrodes (7 cm⫻5 cm:35 cm2)
kept firm by elastic bands. The excitability enhancing anodal
electrode was placed over the Broca’s region, while the cathodal
electrode was placed over the right supraorbitary region. This
montage has been successfully used in previous tDCS studies
(e.g. deVries et al., 2010; Iyer et al., 2005). The Broca’s region (left
BA 44/45) was localised according to the 10 –20 EEG system as
the crossing point between T3-Fz and F7-Cz. This localization
method has been used before in tDCS studies (e.g. Monti et al.,
2008), and the reliability of localizing a desired cortex region using
the 10 –20 system has been empirically demonstrated (Herwig et
al., 2003). Stimulation intensity was set at 2 mA; the duration of
stimulation was 20 min. Twenty minutes of stimulation at 2 mA are
expected to induce long-lasting effects fully covering the overall
65
duration (approximately 10 min) of the tasks following stimulation,
as suggested by previous evidence showing that 13 min of 1 mA
tDCS stimulation over the motor cortex significantly increased
motor cortex excitability for up to 90 min after the end of stimula-
tion (Nitsche and Paulus, 2001). Current density (0.057 mA/cm2)
was maintained below the safety limits (Poreisz et al., 2007). For
sham stimulation, the electrodes were placed in the same posi-
tions as Broca’s tDCS. At the onset of both the real and sham
stimulation the current was increased in a ramp-like fashion
(Nitsche et al., 2003), eliciting a transient tingling sensation on the
scalp that faded over seconds, consistent with previous reports
(Nitsche et al., 2003). In both the real and the sham sessions,
current was then turned off slowly over a few seconds (in the real
tDCS session after 20 min of stimulation, in the sham session after
30 s of stimulation), out of the field of view of the participants, a
procedure that does not elicit perceptions (Hummel et al., 2005;
Nitsche et al., 2003). This procedure ensured that participants felt
the initial itching sensation at the beginning of tDCS, but pre-
vented any effective modulation of cortical excitability by tDCS.
The study was a single-blind experiment: the individual subjects
were not informed about the type of stimulation they received
while the experimenter knew it (see Fertonani et al., 2010, for a
similar procedure). The order of the Sham and Real sessions was
counterbalanced across participants.
Verbal fluency. The experimental task consisted of Verbal
Fluency, both on phonemic and semantic cue, taken from Novelli
et al. (1986).
● Phonemic (letter) fluency: each subject was asked to gen-
erate as many distinct words as he/she could, beginning with
a specific letter (the letters “P,” “F,” “L” and “G”) in a period
of 1 min. Participants were instructed not to provide proper
nouns (such as Paul or Paris) or use the root of a word more
than once (e.g. bed, bedroom . . .) and not to provide the
same word twice (perseverative error). The usual letters for
Italian are F, P, L. According to the Corpus and Frequency
Lexicon of Written Italian (COLFIS, see http://www.istc.cnr.it/
material/database/colfis/index_eng.shtml), approximately
the same number of words are available for the letter F
(mean frequency1⫽43.00) and P (mean frequency⫽43.07).
Hence, the letter G (mean frequency⫽35.73) was chosen in
order to have a letter for which approximately the same
number of words than the letter L (mean frequency⫽34.47)
is available.
● Semantic (categorical) fluency: each subject was asked to
give as many exemplars belonging to a given category
(“Fruits,” “Animals,” “Car brands and names,” “Musical in-
struments”) as possible in 1 min. They were instructed not to
provide the same word twice, nor use the same family (i.e.
“dog,” “puppy,” etc). The usual categories for Italian are
brands of cars, animals and fruits. Musical instruments were
chosen in order to have a category matching brands of cars
in terms of difficulty (see Hodges et al., 1995).
The total number of words generated excluding errors was
recorded. All ratings were reviewed by a trained psychologist
(A.P.).
In each session (Real and Sham tDCS) subjects were asked
to perform the phonemic fluency for two letters and the semantic
fluency for two categories. For the same subject, different letters
and categories were used in the two experimental sessions. Spe-
cifically, half of the participants were presented with the letters “G”
and “F” in the first tDCS session and with the letters “P” and “L” in
the second tDCS session; the other half were presented with the
1
The mean frequency for each letter has been computed by averaging
the total frequency for all nouns, adjectives and verbs in the infinite
form starting with that specific letter as reported in the COLFIS data-
base.
66 Z. Cattaneo et al. / Neuroscience 183 (2011) 64 –70
Fig. 1. Mean number of words (average for one letter or category)
produced in Phonemic Fluency and in Semantic Fluency in Experi-
ment 1 (tDCS delivered over Broca’s region). Participants produced
significantly more words in the Semantic than in the Phonemic fluency.
Real tDCS significantly enhanced Verbal Fluency regardless of type of
task (phonemic vs. semantic). Error bars depict⫾SEM.
reversed order. Similarly, half of the participants were presented
with the categories “Fruits” and “Car brands and names” in the first
tDCS session and with the categories “Animals” and “Musical
instruments” in the second tDCS session. In each session, the
order of presentation of each of the two letters and of each of the
two categories was also randomised and counterbalanced across
participants. The order in which the Phonemic and the Semantic
verbal fluency tasks were administered was counterbalanced
across subjects; for each subject, the order followed in the first
session was reversed in the second session. Crucially, all letters
and categories were employed the same number of times in the
Sham and Real tDCS conditions.
Control task. Seven participants also performed a spatial
detection task after completion of the fluency tasks. In each trial,
a fixation point was presented in the middle of the screen together
with two empty squares (measuring approximately one degree of
visual angle), appearing one to the left and one to the right of the
fixation point and on the same horizontal axis, for 1 s. After
fixation, a cross (target) appeared either in the left or in the right
square. Participants had to indicate, as fast as possible, whether
the target appeared in the left or in the right square by pressing
with the right index finger a left key, and with the right middle finger
a right key, respectively. Reaction times and accuracy were re-
corded for each trial. The control task consisted of 200 trials (1 min
rest was given after 100 trials).
Procedure. Subjects were seated in front of a computer
screen, in a normal-lightened and silent room. Before starting the
experiment, participants were instructed about the tasks they
would have to perform. Participants who performed the control
experiment were also presented with a few experimental trials in
order to familiarise themselves with the task. After the instructions,
a cartoon movie (with no audio) was projected on the PC com-
puter, and subjects were told to watch it. The tDCS stimulation
was started concurrently with the beginning of the video. The
cartoon movie was the same for each subject and for the two
tDCS sessions. This was done in order to reduce inter-subjects
variability with participants being exposed to the same visual
experience. Verbal fluency was administered after the end of the
tDCS stimulation. After 18 min from the beginning of the stimula-
tion, the cartoon movie was stopped and subjects were told that in
2 min they would have to perform the task. The first fluency task
was administered within 1 min from the end of the tDCS stimula-
tion; the second fluency task was administered within 1 min from
the end of the first verbal fluency. In all cases, the two tasks were
completed within 5 min from the end of the tDCS stimulation. After
5 min from the end of the tDCS stimulation, the visual detection
control task was administered. The control task took approxi-
mately 5 min.
Results
Verbal fluency. Analyses were performed on the mean
number of words generated excluding errors in the Phonemic
Fluency (averaged number of words for each letter) and in the
Semantic Fluency (averaged number of words for each category).
Fig. 1 shows the mean number of words produced in the Semantic
Fluency and in the Phonemic Fluency in the Real and Sham tDCS
session, respectively.
A repeated measures ANOVA was carried out on the mean
number of words generated with Task (Semantic vs. Phonemic
fluency) and stimulation condition (Sham vs. Real) as within-
subjects variables. The ANOVA revealed both a main effect of
task, F(1,9)⫽11.18, P⫽0.009, n2⫽.55 and a main effect of stim-
ulation condition, F(1,9)⫽42.05, P⬍0.001, n2⫽.83. The type of
task by stimulation interaction was not significant, F(1,9)⫽3.68,
P⫽0.09, n2⫽.29. The main effect of task was due to the number
of words produced in the Semantic Fluency condition (mean num-
ber of words⫽19.33, SD⫽3.68) being overall higher than the total
number of words produced in the Phonemic Fluency condition
(mean number of words⫽14.98, SD⫽3.49), which is a well-known
result. The main effect of stimulation condition was due to real
tDCS enhancing subjects’ performance (mean number of words
produced⫽18.93, SD⫽3.24) compared to the sham tDCS condi-
tion (mean⫽15.38, SD⫽2.89).
Control experiment. Mean response latencies for correct
responses in the Control experiment are reported in Fig. 2. Anal-
yses on the mean reaction times for correct responses in the
Control experiment demonstrated that response latencies did not
significantly differ following sham tDCS (mean RT⫽332.5 ms,
SD⫽15.0) vs. real tDCS (mean RT⫽340.5, SD⫽34.9), t(6)⫽.85,
P⫽0.43.
EXPERIMENT 2
Although there is evidence that participants cannot distinguish
between Real and Sham stimulation condition when 1 mA tDCS
using 5⫻5 cm2 electrodes (current density⫽0.04 mA/cm2) is used
(Gandiga et al., 2006), in our experiment 2 mA tDCS was applied
and 5⫻7 cm2 electrodes were used (current density⫽0.057 mA/
cm2). Given these differences in current intensity and density, we
cannot exclude that at least some of our participants may have
been able to distinguish between Sham and Real stimulation, this
knowledge possibly affecting their performance. In order to control
for this possibility, a new group of neurologically unimpaired par-
Fig. 2. Participants’ mean response latencies (correct responses
only) in the control experiment. Reaction times did not significantly
differ between Real tDCS and Sham tDCS. Error bars depict⫾SEM.
 Z. Cattaneo et al. / Neuroscience 183 (2011) 64 –70
ticipants was tested. In these participants, anodal tDCS was
applied over the right-hemisphere homologue of the Broca’s
region. If participants’ verbal fluency in the sham and real tDCS
sessions of Experiment 1 depended on their capacity to distin-
guish between the two stimulations, then this knowledge should
also affect fluency scores when the homologue of Broca’s
region is stimulated.
Method
Participants. Eight right-handed neurologically unimpaired
individuals (three Males, mean age 23.8 years, SD⫽3.5) took part
in Experiment 2. None of them had participated in Experiment 1.
The same criteria that were used to select participants in Exper-
iment 1 were also applied to Experiment 2. Written informed
consent was obtained from all participants, with the approval of
the local ethical committee of the University of Milano-Bicocca;
subjects were treated in accordance with the Declaration of
Helsinki.
Task and procedure. Task, procedure and tDCS parame-
ters were the same as in Experiment 1, the only difference being
the position of the electrodes on the scalp: the excitability enhanc-
ing anodal electrode was placed over the right-hemisphere homo-
logue of Broca’s region, while the cathodal electrode was placed
over the left supraorbitary region. The homologue of Broca’s
region in the right-hemisphere was localized according to the
10 –20 EEG system.
Results
Analyses were performed as in Experiment 1. Fig. 3 shows the
mean number of words produced in the Semantic Fluency and in
the Phonemic Fluency in the Real and Sham tDCS session,
respectively. A repeated measures ANOVA carried out on the
mean number of words generated with task (Semantic vs. Pho-
nemic fluency) and stimulation condition (Sham vs. Real) as with-
in-subjects variables, only revealed a main effect of task,
F(1,7)⫽37.66, P⬍0.001, n2⫽.84. Neither the effect of stimulation
condition, F(1,7)⫽.007, P⫽0.94, n2⫽.001, nor the interaction type
of task by stimulation condition, F(1,7)⫽.35, P⫽0.57, n2⫽.05,
reached significance. The main effect of task depended on par-
ticipants producing overall more words in the Semantic Fluency
condition (mean⫽18.75, SD⫽4.15) than in the Phonemic Fluency
condition (mean⫽13.44, SD⫽3.61), resembling Experiment 1’s
findings.
Fig. 3. Mean number of words produced in Phonemic Fluency and in
Semantic Fluency in Experiment 2 (tDCS delivered over the right-
hemisphere homologue of Broca’s region). As in Experiment 1, par-
ticipants produced significantly more words in the Semantic than in the
Phonemic fluency. No difference in performance was observed be-
tween the Real tDCS and the Sham tDCS sessions. Error bars
depict⫾SEM.
67
Analyses on the mean reaction times for correct responses in
the Control spatial detection experiment demonstrated that re-
sponse latencies did not significantly differ following sham tDCS
(mean RT⫽318.6 ms, SD⫽55.8) vs. real tDCS (mean RT⫽323.5,
SD⫽50.3), t(7)⫽.85, P⫽0.42.
DISCUSSION
Our results show that anodal tDCS over Broca’s region
(compared to sham stimulation) significantly improved
participants’ performance in both semantic and phone-
mic fluency. Overall participants generated more words
following semantic cues (i.e. the name of a category)
than phonological cues (i.e. a letter), in line with previ-
ous evidence (Gollan et al., 2002; Grogan et al., 2008;
Novelli et al., 1986), but the effect of tDCS over the
Broca’s region was comparable in the two tasks. Al-
though one might argue that the effects we obtained
may depend—at least in part— on non-specific effects of
tDCS over levels of general arousal or attention, this
possibility was ruled out by a control experiment dem-
onstrating that response latencies in a spatial attention
task were similar following real and sham tDCS over
Broca’s region. Accordingly, previous studies have con-
sistently shown that tDCS over frontal regions during
language tasks did not directly affect attention (see Fer-
tonani et al., 2010; Monti et al., 2008). Finally, although
some participants may have been aware of the differ-
ence between Real and Sham tDCS, this possible
knowledge did not affect their performance, as demon-
strated by the lack of difference in fluency scores be-
tween Real and Sham tDCS when Broca’s homologue in
the right-hemisphere was stimulated (Experiment 2).
Large evidence suggests that phonemic and semantic
fluency involve partially different neural networks (e.g. Birn
et al., 2010; Grogan et al., 2009; Gourovitch et al., 2000;
Heim et al., 2008; Perani et al., 2003). In particular, se-
mantic fluency compared to phonemic fluency is associ-
ated to a greater activation of the left inferior temporal lobe,
reflecting the site of stored information being retrieved (e.g.
Mummery et al., 1996; Gourovitch et al., 2000; Heim et al.,
2008). Nonetheless, the inferior frontal gyrus is likely to
subserve common processes critical for both semantic and
phonemic tasks (for a review, see Costafreda et al., 2006),
as also suggested by the case of patients with frontal
lesions showing deficits in both situations (Baldo and Shi-
mamura, 1998; Schwartz and Baldo, 2001). Moreover,
there is evidence suggesting that semantic facilitation is
pervasive in word retrieval processes, even in the letter-
fluency task (e.g. Schwartz et al., 2003) and consistent
findings on healthy adults point to a specific role of the left
inferior frontal gyrus for semantic judgment (e.g. Devlin et
al., 2003; McDermott et al., 2003). Our results support the
importance of the inferior frontal gyrus in verbal fluency
and points to the Broca’s region as a critical candidate for
tDCS stimulation in rehabilitation protocols aiming to im-
prove language functions in patients.
Indeed, verbal fluency tests have been largely used to
assess language related and executive control processes
in several neural disorders, ranging from traumatic brain
68 Z. Cattaneo et al. / Neuroscience 183 (2011) 64 –70
injury (Henry and Crawford, 2004a), autism (e.g. Spek et
al., 2009), Alzheimer’s disease (Henry et al., 2004), Par-
kinson’s disease (Henry and Crawford, 2004b), Hunting-
ton’s disease (Henry et al., 2005), depression (Henry and
Crawford, 2005), schizophrenia (Costafreda et al., 2011),
attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (e.g. Hurks et al.,
2004). tDCS may thus be of critical therapeutic importance
in all these disorders, also shedding light on the neural
mechanisms underlying the symptoms common to these
pathologies. Importantly, enhancing activation of Broca’s
region with anodal tDCS may have a positive effect on
different aspects of language processing beyond verbal
fluency, such as figurative language comprehension (e.g.,
Yang et al., 2010) or gesture-language interplay (Dick et
al., 2009), in which the inferior frontal gyrus has been
found to play a critical role (Lauro et al., 2010). On this
regard, it is worth noting that the facilitatory effects induced
by anodal tDCS we reported may not entirely depend on
stimulation of the Broca’s region itself but also on spread-
ing of activation along the language network of which the
Broca’s region represents a central node (Grodzinsky and
Santi, 2008). Indeed, recent evidence suggests that tDCS
affects cortical functional connectivity (Polanía et al., in
press).
In sum, our findings add to the existing literature by
showing that anodal tDCS over Broca’s region improves
verbal fluency in general. These results suggest that a
similar stimulation protocol may be used to enhance lan-
guage functions in patients affected by oral language pro-
duction deficits. Although the interaction of tDCS with cor-
tical plasticity phenomena following brain injury may com-
plicate this prediction (e.g. Floel and Cohen, 2010;
Hummel and Cohen, 2005; Pascual-Leone et al., 2005),
our data confirm the potential role of tDCS in neuroreha-
bilitation. Indeed, none of our subjects reported adverse
effects or asked to interrupt the experiment. This confirms
the advantage of tDCS compared to other brain stimulation
techniques, such as TMS that had already become an
important tool for studying language (Devlin and Watkins,
2007). Beyond being more tolerable by subjects, tDCS
produces fewer artifacts such as acoustic noise and mus-
cle twitching, and it is more suitable for double-blind,
sham-controlled studies and thus clinical applications.
Acknowledgments—This study was supported by a FAR grant
to C.P.
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(Accepted 27 March 2011)

(Available online 6 April 2011)