Trial reportNature communications2017
Low frequency transcranial electrical stimulation does not entrain sleep rhythms measured by human intracranial recordings.
Trial report in Nature communications, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 103 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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
103 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 199 citations in OpenAlex.
- A meta-analysis suggests that tACS improves cognition in healthy, aging, and psychiatric populations.Science translational medicine · 2023Pooled it
- Transcranial current stimulation in epilepsy: A systematic review of the fundamental and clinical aspects.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2022Pooled it
- Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS): from basic mechanisms towards first applications in psychiatry.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2021Pooled it
- Personalized high-intensity temporal interference stimulation decouples cerebellar networks to enhance implicit learning.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation · 2026Trial
- No aftereffects of high current density 10 Hz and 20 Hz tACS on sensorimotor alpha and beta oscillations.Scientific reports · 2021Trial
- Protocol on transcranial alternating current stimulation for the treatment of major depressive disorder: a randomized controlled trial.Chinese medical journal · 2020Trial
- Trial
- Cerebellar High Frequency Transcranial Pulsed Current Stimulation Increases Total Sleep Time in Chronic Insomnia: A Pilot Study.Research square · 2026Article
- Oscillatory brain state-dependent stimulation with transcranial magnetic stimulation combined with electroencephalography.Nature protocols · 2026Review
- Manipulating speech perception with amplitude-modulated kilohertz magnetic perturbation (AM-kTMP).bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Temporal Response Function-Driven Representational Similarity Analysis for Speech Perception Decoding with MEG and EEG.Biology · 2026Article
- Low intensity transcranial electric stimulation: Safety, ethical, legal regulatory and application guidelines (2017-2025: An update) - endorsed by the European Society for Brain Stimulation (ESBS) and by the International Federation for Clinical Neurophysiology (IFCN).Clinical neurophysiology : official journal of the International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology · 2026Review
- Transcranial focused ultrasound induces source localizable cortical activation in resting state humans when applied concurrently with transcranial electric stimulation.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Modulation of slow and fast oscillations by direct current stimulation in the cerebral cortex in vitro.The Journal of physiology · 2026Article
- Investigating the role of beta and gamma tACS in visual processing and conscious perception.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2026Article
- Dual-site theta stimulation modulates connectivity, but not sequence memory in older adults.Brain communications · 2026Article
- Neural changes to transcranial alternating current stimulation in the gamma range over the left frontoparietal network: A preliminary eLORETA EEG study.AIMS neuroscience · 2026Article
- Emerging neurotechnological approaches to management of sleep disturbances in Parkinson's disease.Clinical parkinsonism & related disorders · 2026Review
- Multi-scale model of neural entrainment by transcranial alternating current stimulation in realistic cortical anatomy.Journal of computational neuroscience · 2025Article
- Frequency-specific and state-dependent neural responses to brain stimulation.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Article
43 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
11 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Transcranial electrical stimulation has widespread clinical and research applications, yet its effect on ongoing neural activity in humans is not well established. Previous reports argue that transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) can entrain and enhance neural rhythms related to memory, but the evidence from non-invasive recordings has remained inconclusive. Here, we measure endogenous spindle and theta activity intracranially in humans during low-frequency tACS and find no stable entrainment of spindle power during non-REM sleep, nor of theta power during resting wakefulness. As positive controls, we find robust entrainment of spindle activity to endogenous slow-wave activity in 66% of electrodes as well as entrainment to rhythmic noise-burst acoustic stimulation in 14% of electrodes. We conclude that low-frequency tACS at common stimulation intensities neither acutely modulates spindle activity during sleep nor theta activity during waking rest, likely because of the attenuated electrical fields reaching the cortical surface.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.