ArticleBrain stimulation
Evidence of transcranial direct current stimulation-generated electric fields at subthalamic level in human brain in vivo.
Article in Brain stimulation. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT04780152 (Assessment of Efficacy and Safety of Anodal Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation), which is not on this map. Cited by 49 papers.
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.
Assessment of Efficacy and Safety of Anodal Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (TDCS) in Pediatric and Teenage Patients With Major Depressive Disorder During COVID-19 Pandemics
Who cites it
49 citing papers in PubMed.
- Safety and efficacy of transcranial direct current stimulation in addition to constraint-induced movement therapy for post-stroke motor recovery (TRANSPORT2): a phase 2, multicentre, randomised, sham-controlled triple-blind trial.The Lancet. Neurology · 2025Trial
- Treating refractory obsessive-compulsive disorder with transcranial direct current stimulation: An open label study.Brain and behavior · 2020Trial
- Increased leg muscle fatigability during 2 mA and 4 mA transcranial direct current stimulation over the left motor cortex.Experimental brain research · 2020Trial
- Effects of Extracellular Resistance on Neuronal Sensitivity Under Weak Alternating Electric Field Stimulation: A Computational Study.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 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
- Roadmap towards personalized approaches and safety considerations in non-ionizing radiation: from dosimetry to therapeutic and diagnostic applications.Physics in medicine and biology · 2026Review
- Resting-State Activity Changes Induced by tDCS in MS Patients and Healthy Controls: A Simultaneous tDCS rs-fMRI Study.Bioengineering (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Effects of transcranial magnetic stimulation on the human brain recorded with intracranial electrocorticography.Molecular psychiatry · 2024Article
- Challenges and solutions to optimize stroke recovery trial enrollment and execution.The Lancet regional health. Europe · 2024Article
- Individual and group-level optimization of electric field in deep brain region during multichannel transcranial electrical stimulation.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2024Article
- Dopamine Alters the Effect of Brain Stimulation on Decision-Making.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2023Article
- Modeling Electric Fields in Transcutaneous Spinal Direct Current Stimulation: A Clinical Perspective.Biomedicines · 2023Review
- Consensus Paper: Novel Directions and Next Steps of Non-invasive Brain Stimulation of the Cerebellum in Health and Disease.Cerebellum (London, England) · 2022Article
- Addressing transcranial electrical stimulation variability through prospective individualized dosing of electric field strength in 300 participants across two samples: the 2-SPED approach.Journal of neural engineering · 2022Article
- In Vivo Measurements of Transcranial Electrical Stimulation in Lesioned Human Brain: A Case Report.Brain sciences · 2022Article
- Electric Fields Induced in the Brain by Transcranial Electric Stimulation: A Review of In Vivo Recordings.Biomedicines · 2022Review
- Inter-Individual Variability in tDCS Effects: A Narrative Review on the Contribution of Stable, Variable, and Contextual Factors.Brain sciences · 2022Review
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- Transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) in the primary motor cortex and its effects on sensorimotor function: a quasi-experimental single-blind sham-controlled trial.Scientific reports · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundTranscranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a promising brain modulation technique for several disease conditions. With this technique, some portion of the current penetrates through the scalp to the cortex and modulates cortical excitability, but a recent human cadaver study questions the amount. This insufficient intracerebral penetration of currents may partially explain the inconsistent and mixed results in tDCS studies to date. Experimental validation of a transcranial alternating current stimulation-generated electric field (EF) in vivo has been performed on the cortical (using electrocorticography, ECoG, electrodes), subcortical (using stereo electroencephalography, SEEG, electrodes) and deeper thalamic/subthalamic levels (using DBS electrodes). However, tDCS-generated EF measurements have never been attempted.
objectiveWe aimed to demonstrate that tDCS generates biologically relevant EF as deep as the subthalamic level in vivo.
methodsPatients with movement disorders who have implanted deep brain stimulation (DBS) electrodes serve as a natural experimental model for thalamic/subthalamic recordings of tDCS-generated EF. We measured voltage changes from DBS electrodes and body resistance from tDCS electrodes in three subjects while applying direct current to the scalp at 2 mA and 4 mA over two tDCS montages.
resultsVoltage changes at the level of deep nuclei changed proportionally with the level of applied current and varied with different tDCS montages.
conclusionsOur findings suggest that scalp-applied tDCS generates biologically relevant EF. Incorporation of these experimental results may improve finite element analysis (FEA)-based models.
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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.