Noninvasive Brain Stimulation of the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex During Aesthetic Appreciation

Several neuroimaging studies had shown that activity in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (lDLPFC) was associated with aesthetic appreciation. But, was this a causal association? In the article under discussion, the authors used transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to determine whether lDLPFC activity actually caused increased aesthetic appreciation. Their results showed that tDCS over lDLPFC caused liking for artworks and photographs to increase. They therefore concluded that the lDLPFC plays a causal role in visual aesthetic appreciation. The authors suggested that lDLPFC activity contributes to disengaging from a pragmatic orientation to stimuli, consisting mainly in identifying objects, adopting an aesthetic orientation, and focusing on those objects’ aesthetic qualities.