Figure 1. Experimental course of the present study.

The study was conducted in two parts. For the single dose medication part, subjects received a single dosage of 8 mg reboxetine (RBX) or placebo (PLC) medication with anodal or cathodal tDCS. After these four sessions, which were separated by at least 1 week from each other, they took 8 mg RBX consecutively for 21 days. In the ‘chronic’ part of the experiments, the other two sessions (RBX with anodal or cathodal tDCS) were conducted at the end of the second and third week. For each session, first baseline MEPs (BL1) were recorded with TMS. Two hours after intake of the medication, a second baseline (BL2) was determined and adjusted if necessary (BL3). Afterwards, tDCS was applied and MEPs were recorded after stimulation at different time points until next evening.