ArticleFrontiers in aging neuroscience2014
Noninvasive stimulation of prefrontal cortex strengthens existing episodic memories and reduces forgetting in the elderly.
Article in Frontiers in aging neuroscience, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 50 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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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
50 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 119 citations in OpenAlex.
- A Systematic Review of Non-invasive Brain Stimulation Applications to Memory in Healthy Aging.Frontiers in neurology · 2020Pooled it
- Effects of noninvasive brain stimulation on cognitive function in healthy aging and Alzheimer's disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Neurobiology of aging · 2015Pooled it
- Transcranial alternating current stimulation of the posterior parietal cortex enhances episodic memory consolidation.Experimental brain research · 2026Trial
- Enhancing Immediate Memory, Potential Learning, and Working Memory with Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation in Healthy Older Adults.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Trial
- Proximal improvement and higher-order resting state network change after multidomain cognitive training intervention in healthy older adults.GeroScience · 2022Trial
- Trial
- Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Enhances Episodic Memory in Healthy Older Adults by Modulating Retrieval-Specific Activation.Neural plasticity · 2020Trial
- No Effect of Anodal tDCS on Verbal Episodic Memory Performance and Neurotransmitter Levels in Young and Elderly Participants.Neural plasticity · 2020Trial
- Effects on cognition of 20-day anodal transcranial direct current stimulation over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in patients affected by mild cognitive impairment: a case-control study.Neurological sciences : official journal of the Italian Neurological Society and of the Italian Society of Clinical Neurophysiology · 2019Trial
- Transcranial alternating current stimulation over the prefrontal cortex enhances episodic memory recognition.Experimental brain research · 2019Trial
- tDCS-induced episodic memory enhancement and its association with functional network coupling in older adults.Scientific reports · 2019Trial
- Older adults get episodic memory boosting from noninvasive stimulation of prefrontal cortex during learning.Neurobiology of aging · 2016Trial
- Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation to Address Mild Cognitive Impairment in the Elderly: A Randomized Controlled Study.Behavioural neurology · 2015Trial
- Gamma tACS over the prefrontal and parietal cortices enhances episodic memory performance.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2026Article
- Artificial Intelligence-Driven Neuromodulation in Neurodegenerative Disease: Precision in Chaos, Learning in Loss.Biomedicines · 2025Review
- The ventromedial prefrontal cortex in response to threat omission is associated with subsequent explicit safety memory.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Cognitive reserve predicts episodic memory enhancement induced by transcranial direct current stimulation in healthy older adults.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Evidence of compensatory neural hyperactivity in a subgroup of breast cancer survivors treated with chemotherapy and its association with brain aging.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2024Article
- Long-lasting improvements in episodic memory among subjects with mild cognitive impairment who received transcranial direct current stimulation combined with cognitive treatment and telerehabilitation: a multicentre, randomized, active-controlled study.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2024Article
- Lack of effects of online HD-tDCS over the left or right DLPFC in an associative memory and metamemory monitoring task.PloS one · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Memory consolidation is a dynamic process. Reactivation of consolidated memories by a reminder triggers reconsolidation, a time-limited period during which existing memories can be modified (i.e., weakened or strengthened). Episodic memory refers to our ability to recall specific past events about what happened, including where and when. Difficulties in this form of long-term memory commonly occur in healthy aging. Because episodic memory is critical for daily life functioning, the development of effective interventions to reduce memory loss in elderly individuals is of great importance. Previous studies in young adults showed that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) plays a causal role in strengthening of verbal episodic memories through reconsolidation. The aim of the present study was to explore the extent to which facilitatory transcranial direct current stimulation (anodal tDCS) over the left DLPFC would strengthen existing episodic memories through reconsolidation in elderly individuals. On Day 1, older adults learned a list of 20 words. On Day 2 (24 h later), they received a reminder or not, and after 10 min tDCS was applied over the left DLPFC. Memory recall was tested on Day 3 (48 h later) and Day 30 (1 month later). Surprisingly, anodal tDCS over the left DLPFC (i.e., with or without the reminder) strengthened existing verbal episodic memories and reduced forgetting compared to sham stimulation. These results provide a framework for testing the hypothesis that facilitatory tDCS of left DLPFC might strengthen existing episodic memories and reduce memory loss in older adults with amnestic mild cognitive impairment.
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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.