Table 1.

Neurocognitive Effects of Established and Emerging Neuromodulation Techniques

Neuromodulation Technique	Neurocognitive Effects
Electroconvulsive Therapy	Retrograde amnesia, anterograde amnesia, postictal disorientation
Ablative Surgery
Anterior Capsulotomy	Possible impairment in emotion recognition, set shifting, verbal fluency, and working memory
Anterior Cingulotomy	Mixed reports, with some studies showing impairments in executive functioning, and others reporting improvements in executive functioning
Stereotactic Subcaudate Tractotomy	Possible transient wide spread frontal impairment (potentially associated with post-operative edema)
Limbic Leucotomy	No neurocognitive impairment on the WAIS; possible improvements in WAIS Verbal, Performance, and Full Scale IQ Scores (potentially associated with practice effects)
Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation	Mixed reports, with most studies reporting no impairments, but some studies finding mild reductions in sustained attention, spatial planning, and verbal retention; possible improvements in global cognitive awareness, manual motor speed, simple reaction time, verbal learning, attention, processing speed, verbal fluency, autobiographical memory, visual learning, working memory, and executive functioning
Magnetic Seizure Therapy	Minimal retrograde amnesia, minimal anterograde amnesia, rapid postictal reorientation
Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation	No neurocognitive impairment in psychomotor speed, working memory, attention, recognition memory, or executive functioning; possible improvement in working memory
Vagus Nerve Stimulation	No neurocognitive impairment in attention, psychomotor speed, verbal fluency, memory, or executive functioning; possible improvement in psychomotor speed, language, and executive functioning (potentially associated with mood improvement)
Deep Brain Stimulation
Subcallosal cingulate white matter (SCCwm)	No neurocognitive impairment in verbal IQ, attention, psychomotor speed, risk taking, memory, or executive functioning; possible improvement in verbal and visual memory, manual motor speed, and verbal learning in patients performing below average at baseline (not apparently associated with mood improvement)
Ventral capsule/ventral striatum (VC/VS)	No neurocognitive impairment in general intellectual ability, language, processing speed, executive functioning, learning, or memory; possible improvement in verbal learning (not apparently associated with mood improvement)
Nucleus Accumbens (NAc)	No neurocognitive impairment in general intellectual ability, language, processing speed, executive functioning, learning, or memory
Inferior thalamic peduncle (ITP)	No changes in visual attention, visuoconstructive perception, verbal fluency or abstraction; possible improvements in manual praxis and verbal/nonverbal memory
Lateral Habenula (LHb)	No data available