Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation in Social and Emotion Research

Social and affective neurosciences are topics of increasing popularity and great urgency in contemporary brain research. Before the introduction of the noninvasive brain stimulation methods used presently, most of the research on social and emotional processes relied on behavioral methods, lesions, and/or correlational methods alone. The possibility to noninvasively and transiently interfere with the ongoing brain function using a site-specific technique as transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) allows us to understand brain–behavior relationships with another level of causality that cannot be achieved with imaging or behavioral methods alone. In this chapter, we will review how tDCS has been used in social and emotional neuroscience studies, with a focus on basic research.