ArticleFrontiers in aging neuroscience2018
Frontoparietal tDCS Benefits Visual Working Memory in Older Adults With Low Working Memory Capacity.
Article in Frontiers in aging neuroscience, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers, 4 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
28 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 59 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Effects of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) on the Cognitive Functions: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.Neuropsychology review · 2025Pooled it
- A meta-analysis of the effects of transcranial direct current stimulation combined with cognitive training on working memory in healthy older adults.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2024Pooled it
- Identifying regions in prefrontal cortex related to working memory improvement: A novel meta-analytic method using electric field modeling.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2021Pooled it
- A Systematic Review of Non-invasive Brain Stimulation Applications to Memory in Healthy Aging.Frontiers in neurology · 2020Pooled it
- Effects of multisession frontoparietal network anodal tDCS and cognitive rehabilitation on subjective cognitive impairment: a double-blind RCT.BMC neurology · 2026Trial
- Noninvasive Brain Stimulation over the Frontopolar Cortex Promotes Willingness to Exert Cognitive Effort in a Foraging-Like Sequential Choice Task.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Trial
- Inter-individual differences in baseline dynamic functional connectivity are linked to cognitive aftereffects of tDCS.Scientific reports · 2022Trial
- Anodal tDCS augments and preserves working memory beyond time-on-task deficits.Scientific reports · 2021Trial
- Cognitive Aftereffects of Acute tDCS Coupled with Cognitive Training: An fMRI Study in Healthy Seniors.Neural plasticity · 2021Trial
- Evidence against benefits from cognitive training and transcranial direct current stimulation in healthy older adults.Nature human behaviour · 2021Trial
- No Effect of Anodal tDCS on Verbal Episodic Memory Performance and Neurotransmitter Levels in Young and Elderly Participants.Neural plasticity · 2020Trial
- Supporting Visual Working Memory in Healthy Aging: A Review of Current Interventions and Perspectives on Future Approaches.Brain sciences · 2026Review
- Boosting brainpower in ageing: Task-specific and transfer effects of tDCS-enhanced working memory training.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Older adults are impaired by distractors presented during working memory encoding.Psychological research · 2025Article
- Improving auditory alarm sensitivity during simulated aeronautical decision-making: the effect of transcranial direct current stimulation combined with computerized working memory training.Cognitive research: principles and implications · 2025Article
- Article
- Sensory stimulation enhances visual working memory capacity.Communications psychology · 2024Article
- TDCS over PPC or DLPFC does not improve visual working memory capacity.Communications psychology · 2024Article
- Closing the loop between brain and electrical stimulation: towards precision neuromodulation treatments.Translational psychiatry · 2023Review
- Multi-scale multi-physics model of brain interstitial water flux by transcranial Direct Current Stimulation.Journal of neural engineering · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Working memory (WM) permits maintenance of information over brief delays and is an essential executive function. Unfortunately, WM is subject to age-related decline. Some evidence supports the use of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to improve visual WM. A gap in knowledge is an understanding of the mechanism characterizing these tDCS linked effects. To address this gap, we compared the effects of two tDCS montages designed on visual working memory (VWM) performance. The bifrontal montage was designed to stimulate the heightened bilateral frontal activity observed in aging adults. The unilateral frontoparietal montage was designed to stimulate activation patterns observed in young adults. Participants completed three sessions (bilateral frontal, right frontoparietal, sham) of anodal tDCS (20 min, 2 mA). During stimulation, participants performed a visual long-term memory (LTM) control task and a visual WM task. There was no effect of tDCS on the LTM task. Participants receiving right unilateral tDCS showed a WM benefit. This pattern was most robust in older adults with low WM capacity. To address the concern that the key difference between the two tDCS montages could be tDCS over the posterior parietal cortex (PPC), we included new analyses from a previous study applying tDCS targeting the PPC paired with a recognition VWM task. No significant main effects were found. A subsequent experiment in young adults found no significant effect of either tDCS montage on either task. These data indicate that tDCS montage, age and WM capacity should be considered when designing tDCS protocols. We interpret these findings as suggestive that protocols designed to restore more youthful patterns of brain activity are superior to those that compensate for age-related changes.
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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.