ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2012
Synaptic evidence for the efficacy of spaced learning.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 104 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
104 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Short-term and long-term efficacy of accelerated transcranial magnetic stimulation for depression: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC psychiatry · 2024Pooled it
- Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) for geriatric depression.Ageing research reviews · 2022Pooled it
- Current Updates on Newer Forms of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation in Major Depression.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2021Pooled it
- Bilateral sequential accelerated theta-burst stimulation for treatment-resistant depression: an open-label randomized controlled trial.BMC medicine · 2026Trial
- Trial
- Effects of accelerated intermittent θ burst stimulation on depressive episodes and cognitive function in adolescents with bipolar disorder.BMC psychiatry · 2025Trial
- A sequential dual-site repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation for major depressive disorder: A randomized clinical trial.Cell reports. Medicine · 2025Trial
- The effect of once-daily vs. twice-daily intermittent theta burst stimulation on suicidal ideation in treatment-resistant depression.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2025Trial
- Extended course accelerated intermittent theta burst stimulation as a substitute for depressed patients needing electroconvulsive therapy.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2025Trial
- Randomised controlled trial comparing different intersession intervals of intermittent theta burst delivered to the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex.BMJ mental health · 2024Trial
- Accelerated sequential bilateral theta-burst stimulation in major depression: an open trial.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2024Trial
- The effects of D-Cycloserine on corticospinal excitability after repeated spaced intermittent theta-burst transcranial magnetic stimulation: A randomized controlled trial in healthy individuals.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2023Trial
- The effect of stimulation interval on plasticity following repeated blocks of intermittent theta burst stimulation.Scientific reports · 2018Trial
- Neurophysiological signatures of Stanford Neuromodulation Therapy in treatment resistant depression.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Precision non-invasive transcranial electromagnetic stimulation: a thematic review of optimizing spatial, temporal, and dose dimensions.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2026Review
- The how and why for multiple forms of hippocampal LTP.Frontiers in synaptic neuroscience · 2026Review
- Article
- Review
- Auditory-motor adaptation and de-adaptation for speech depend more on time in the new environment than on the amount of practice.Communications psychology · 2025Article
- Continuous theta burst stimulation in the treatment of epilepsia partialis continua: a case series.Bioelectronic medicine · 2025Article
44 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The superiority of spaced vs. massed training is a fundamental feature of learning. Here, we describe unanticipated timing rules for the production of long-term potentiation (LTP) in adult rat hippocampal slices that can account for one temporal segment of the spaced trials phenomenon. Successive bouts of naturalistic theta burst stimulation of field CA1 afferents markedly enhanced previously saturated LTP if spaced apart by 1 h or longer, but were without effect when shorter intervals were used. Analyses of F-actin-enriched spines to identify potentiated synapses indicated that the added LTP obtained with delayed theta trains involved recruitment of synapses that were "missed" by the first stimulation bout. Single spine glutamate-uncaging experiments confirmed that less than half of the spines in adult hippocampus are primed to undergo plasticity under baseline conditions, suggesting that intrinsic variability among individual synapses imposes a repetitive presentation requirement for maximizing the percentage of potentiated connections. We propose that a combination of local diffusion from initially modified spines coupled with much later membrane insertion events dictate that the repetitions be widely spaced. Thus, the synaptic mechanisms described here provide a neurobiological explanation for one component of a poorly understood, ubiquitous aspect of learning.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.