Multimodal association of tDCS with electroencephalography

In the last decade, in the field of neuromodulation, we have observed an increase in the popularity of approaches that combine transcranial electrical stimulation (tES) with additional methods to establish, in vivo, the neurophysiological consequences of a given experimental or therapeutic manipulation. We are at the beginning of the development of multimodal approaches, and several methods are available that can be combined with tES to study brain functions. This chapter aims to introduce the reader to some basic principles of this multimodal approach. We begin with a brief definition of multimodal association and a description of the advantages of such an approach. Afterwards, we provide a more specific description of how we can combine tES with electroencephalography (EEG). We show that EEG is a feasible and reliable way to track electrophysiological changes induced by tES, deepening our understanding of the mechanisms of action of this tool and revealing the key role of several stimulation features. In neuropsychiatric diseases, a combined tES-EEG approach may allow the prediction of clinical responses to tES, the discrimination of responders from non-responders, improvement in the efficacy of tES, and the tracking of tES-induced neuroplastic changes associated with recovery.