ArticleJournal of neurophysiology2016
Frequency-specific insight into short-term memory capacity.
Article in Journal of neurophysiology, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers, 1 of them a synthesis 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.
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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
19 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Neural correlates of N-back task performance and proposal for corresponding neuromodulation targets in psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders.Psychiatry and clinical neurosciences · 2022Pooled it
- Randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled pilot trial of theta-band transcranial alternating current stimulation during cognitive training in mild Alzheimer's disease.Translational psychiatry · 2026Trial
- Gamma Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation Enhances Working Memory Ability in Healthy People: An EEG Microstate Study.Brain sciences · 2025Article
- Simultaneous tACS-fMRI reveals state- and frequency-specific modulation of hippocampal-cortical functional connectivity.Communications psychology · 2025Article
- Sensory stimulation enhances visual working memory capacity.Communications psychology · 2024Article
- Improving working memory by electrical stimulation and cross-frequency coupling.Molecular brain · 2024Article
- Causal functional maps of brain rhythms in working memory.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- No effects of the theta-frequency transcranial electrical stimulation for recall, attention control, and relation integration in working memory.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2024Article
- Long-lasting, dissociable improvements in working memory and long-term memory in older adults with repetitive neuromodulation.Nature neuroscience · 2022Article
- Local and Distributed fMRI Changes Induced by 40 Hz Gamma tACS of the Bilateral Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex: A Pilot Study.Neural plasticity · 2022Article
- Working Memory and Transcranial-Alternating Current Stimulation-State of the Art: Findings, Missing, and Challenges.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Review
- TMS-EEG Co-Registration in Patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment, Alzheimer's Disease and Other Dementias: A Systematic Review.Brain sciences · 2021Review
- Online and offline effects of transcranial alternating current stimulation of the primary motor cortex.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Working Memory and Cross-Frequency Coupling of Neuronal Oscillations.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Review
- Noninvasive Brain Stimulation & Space Exploration: Opportunities and Challenges.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2020Review
- Investigating the effects of transcranial alternating current stimulation on primary somatosensory cortex.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Modulation of Working Memory Using Transcranial Electrical Stimulation: A Direct Comparison Between TACS and TDCS.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2018Article
- Effects of Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation on the Primary Motor Cortex by Online Combined Approach with Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation.Journal of visualized experiments : JoVE · 2017Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The digit span is one of the most widely used memory tests in clinical and experimental neuropsychology for reliably measuring short-term memory capacity. In the forward version, sequences of digits of increasing length have to be reproduced in the order in which they are presented, whereas in the backward version items must be reproduced in the reversed order. Here, we assessed whether transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) increases the memory span for digits of young and midlife adults. Imperceptibly weak electrical currents in the alpha (10 Hz), beta (20 Hz), theta (5 Hz), and gamma (40 Hz) range, as well as a sham stimulation, were delivered over the left posterior parietal cortex, a cortical region thought to sustain maintenance processes in short-term memory through oscillatory brain activity in the beta range. We showed a frequency-specific effect of beta-tACS that robustly increased the forward memory span of young, but not middle-aged, healthy individuals. The effect correlated with age: the younger the subjects, the greater the benefit arising from parietal beta stimulation. Our results provide evidence of a short-term memory capacity improvement in young adults by online frequency-specific tACS application.
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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.