ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Netw. Physiol.
Sec. Networks in the Brain System
Volume 5 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnetp.2025.1621283
This article is part of the Research TopicStimulation Strategies Targeting Plasticity Mechanisms in Diseased Brain NetworksView all 7 articles
Amplifying post-stimulation oscillatory dynamics by engaging synaptic plasticity with transcranial alternating current stimulation
Provisionally accepted
Jeremie Lefebvre1,2,3,4
Aref Pariz1,3,5*- 1Department of Biology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada
- 2Department of Physics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada
- 3Krembil Brain Institute, University Health Network, Toronto, Canada
- 4Department of Mathematics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
- 5Institute of Mental Health Research at The Royal, Ottawa, Canada
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Periodic brain stimulation (PBS) techniques, either intracranial or non-invasive, electrical or magnetic, represent promising neuromodulatory tools for the treatment of neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. Through the modulation of endogenous oscillations, PBS may engage synaptic plasticity, hopefully leading to persistent lasting effects. However, stabilizing such effects represents an important challenge: the interaction between induced electromagnetic fields and neural circuits may yield highly variable responses due to heterogeneous neuronal and synaptic biophysical properties, limiting PBS clinical potential. In this study, we explored the conditions on which transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) as a common type of non-invasive PBS leads to amplified post-stimulation oscillatory power, persisting once stimulation has been turned off. We specifically examined the effects of heterogeneity in neuron time scales on post-stimulation dynamics in a population of balanced Leaky-Integrate and Fire (LIF) neurons that exhibit synchronous-irregular spiking activity. Our analysis reveals that such heterogeneity enables tACS to engage synaptic plasticity, amplifying post-stimulation power. Our results show that such post-stimulation aftereffects result from selective frequency- and cell-type-specific synaptic modifications. We evaluated the relative importance of stimulation-induced plasticity amongst and between excitatory and inhibitory populations. Our results indicate that heterogeneity in neurons' time scales and synaptic plasticity are both essential for stimulation to support post-stimulation aftereffects, notably to amplify the power of endogenous rhythms.
Keywords: Brain Stimulation, post-stimulation after-effects, stimulationinduced plasticity, heterogeneity, neurons timescale diversity
Received: 30 Apr 2025; Accepted: 30 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lefebvre and Pariz. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Aref Pariz, Department of Biology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.