Thirty schizophrenic patients will be recruited after meeting the inclusion criteria and will be randomly assigned to active and sham stimulation groups. A single session of concurrent prefrontal tDCS/fMRI will be conducted. Participants will undergo baseline task performance before the intervention. One week later, they will undergo the tDCS intervention (active or sham) in the scanner during which they perform the working memory task varying in cognitive load. They will perform the task 12 and 24 h later again.
The purpose of this study is to investigate the mechanism of action of transcranial electrical brain stimulation over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex for cognitive impairment in schizophrenia. To do so the effect of a novel stimulation protocol will be investigated in the fMRI scanner.