Transcranial Stimulation as a Tool for Cognitive Enhancement

Attention is a key process to many daily tasks but it is characterized by limited resources. In many high-stake domains, operators must perform complex tasks for long durations, which deplete attentional resources and promote error making. Some studies have shown that neurostimulation can be used as a tool to improve cognitive abilities. Yet, studies investigating tDCS are often characterized by important experimental flaws and, therefore, it remains unclear to what extent neurostimulation can augment cognition. This project aims at investigating the impact and cerebral mechanisms underpinning neurostimulation to mitigate attentional fatigue. This represents a first step toward developing a system capable of determining one’s level of attentional fatigue using different biomarkers and of presenting cognitive enhancement interventions as a countermeasure to help operators recovering their attentional resources. This project will contribute to expand research on cognitive enhancement and will open new opportunities for Thales to develop user-tailored decision-support systems relevant to aviation, defence, security and transportation use cases.

Faculty Supervisor:

François Vachon

Student:

Partner:

Thales Canada Inc

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Manufacturing; Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

Université Laval

Program: