Trial reportNeuroImage. Clinical2017
TDCS modulates cortical excitability in patients with disorders of consciousness.
Trial report in NeuroImage. Clinical, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 54 papers, 5 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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
54 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Effects and safety of transcranial direct current stimulation on multiple health outcomes: an umbrella review of randomized clinical trials.Molecular psychiatry · 2024Pooled it
- Effect of transcranial direct current stimulation for patients with disorders of consciousness: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2022Pooled it
- Effectiveness of transcranial direct current stimulation over dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in patients with prolonged disorders of consciousness: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in neurology · 2022Pooled it
- Behavioral effects in disorders of consciousness following transcranial direct current stimulation: A systematic review and individual patient data meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials.Frontiers in neurology · 2022Pooled it
- Managing disorders of consciousness: the role of electroencephalography.Journal of neurology · 2021Pooled it
- Alpha-tACS Improves Executive Function and Alpha Power Spectral Density in Patients With Post-Stroke Cognitive Impairment.CNS neuroscience & therapeutics · 2026Trial
- Trial
- Cognitive and neurophysiological effects of bilateral tDCS neuromodulation in patients with minimally conscious state.Scientific reports · 2025Trial
- Perturbational complexity index in assessing responsiveness to rTMS treatment in patients with disorders of consciousness: a cross-over randomized controlled trial study.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation · 2024Trial
- Sleep patterns correlates with the efficacy of tDCS on post-stroke patients with prolonged disorders of consciousness.Journal of translational medicine · 2022Trial
- Effect of medication therapy combined with transcranial direct current stimulation on depression and response inhibition of patients with bipolar disorder type I: a clinical trial.BMC psychiatry · 2021Trial
- Trial
- Efficiency of Repetitive Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation of the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex in Disorders of Consciousness: A Randomized Sham-Controlled Study.Neural plasticity · 2019Trial
- Transcranial direct current stimulation modulates primate brain dynamics across states of consciousness.eLife · 2025Article
- Parietal rTMS Induced Changes in Cortical Excitability in Patients With Minimally Conscious State Using TMS-EEG.CNS neuroscience & therapeutics · 2025Article
- Characterization of responders to transcranial direct current stimulation in disorders of consciousness: A retrospective study of 8 clinical trials.Neurotherapeutics : the journal of the American Society for Experimental NeuroTherapeutics · 2025Article
- Electro-Acupuncture to Treat Disorder of Consciousness (AcuDoc): Study Protocol for a Randomized Sham-Controlled Trial.Brain and behavior · 2025Article
- The Instantaneous Effect and Its Mechanism of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on Working Memory Based on Delta and Gamma Band Electroencephalography Characteristics.Brain sciences · 2025Article
- Homeostatic plasticity in patients with disorders of consciousness detected by combined stimulation: a study protocol.Frontiers in neurology · 2025Article
- Impact of transcranial direct current stimulation combined with median nerve stimulation on CRS-R in patients with prolonged disorders of consciousness after cerebral hemorrhage: protocol for a randomized controlled trial.Frontiers in neurology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has been reported to be a promising technique for consciousness improvement for patients with disorders of consciousness (DOC). However, there has been no direct electrophysiological evidence to demonstrate the efficacy of tDCS on patients with DOC. Therefore, we aim to measure the cortical excitability changes induced by tDCS in patients with DOC, to find electrophysiological evidence supporting the therapeutic efficacy of tDCS on patients with DOC. In this study, we enrolled sixteen patients with DOC, including nine vegetative state (VS) and seven minimally conscious state (MCS) (six females and ten males). TMS-EEG was applied to assess cortical excitability changes after twenty minutes of anodal tDCS of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Global cerebral excitability were calculated to quantify cortical excitability in the temporal domain: four time intervals (0-100, 100-200, 200-300, 300-400 ms). Then local cerebral excitability in the significantly altered time windows were investigated (frontal, left/right hemispheres, central, and posterior). Compared to baseline and sham stimulation, we found that global cerebral excitability increased in early time windows (0-100 and 100-200 ms) for patients with MCS; for the patients with VS, global cerebral excitability increased in the 0-100 ms interval but decreased in the 300-400 ms interval. The local cerebral excitability was significantly different between MCS and VS. The results indicated that tDCS can effectively modulate the cortical excitability of patients with DOC; and the changes in excitability in temporal and spatial domains are different between patients with MCS and those with VS.
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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.