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Endogenous estrogen levels moderate the effects of transcranial direct current stimulation on working memory

Poster Session C - Sunday, March 8, 2026, 5:00 – 7:00 pm PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballroom

Eda Yavuz¹, Jill Noorily¹, Zeina Ghanem¹, Alexandra Gaynor¹; ¹Department of Psychology, Montclair State University

There is growing evidence that individual differences in baseline neural state may moderate effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on cognition. In females, fluctuations in estrogen are associated with differences in cortical excitability, but no studies have tested whether estrogen moderates effects of tDCS on cognitive performance. To address this, we applied high-definition tDCS over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in N=37 female participants with normal menstrual cycles over four sessions: each participant received active (2mA) and sham stimulation during low estrogen and high estrogen menstrual cycle phases while completing an n-back working memory (WM) task. Preliminary results suggest that in low estrogen phases, tDCS slowed reaction time (RT) for misses and altered variability of RT for false alarms and misses. In contrast, no tDCS effects were seen under high estrogen, indicating effects of stimulation on WM-related inhibitory and monitoring processes may be more pronounced when estrogen levels are low. Furthermore, tDCS effects on RT variability under low estrogen differed by WM load: stimulation decreased RT variability for false alarms under moderate load, but increased RT variability for misses under high load. Taken together, our findings suggest that both the magnitude and direction of tDCS effects on WM function, particularly operations that rely on cognitive control, vary based on estrogen level and WM demands. These findings contribute to our understanding of individual differences that may underlie heterogeneity of cognitive responses to tDCS, and highlight the importance of hormonal state as a potential moderator of neuromodulation effects on cognition.

Topic Area: METHODS: Other