ArticleNeural plasticity2018
Anodal tDCS over Primary Motor Cortex Provides No Advantage to Learning Motor Sequences via Observation.
Article in Neural plasticity, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 2 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
15 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Towards optimized methodological parameters for maximizing the behavioral effects of transcranial direct current stimulation.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2024Pooled it
- The Impact of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on Upper-Limb Motor Performance in Healthy Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2019Pooled it
- Glutamatergic modulation of transcranial direct current stimulation over the premotor cortex combined with peripheral nerve stimulation promotes observation-execution-related cortical excitability and motor performance.The Journal of physiology · 2026Trial
- Differences in high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation over the motor hotspot versus the premotor cortex on motor network excitability.Scientific reports · 2019Trial
- Exploring the Prospects of Transcranial Electrical Stimulation (tES) as a Therapeutic Intervention for Post-Stroke Motor Recovery: A Narrative Review.Brain sciences · 2024Review
- Lack of effects of online HD-tDCS over the left or right DLPFC in an associative memory and metamemory monitoring task.PloS one · 2024Article
- Differential effects of remotely supervised transcranial direct current stimulation on recognition memory depending on task order.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2023Article
- The effect of action observation combined with high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation on motor performance in healthy adults: A randomized controlled trial.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2023Article
- Is the "end-of-study guess" a valid measure of sham blinding during transcranial direct current stimulation?The European journal of neuroscience · 2021Article
- Electrifying discourse: Anodal tDCS of the primary motor cortex selectively reduces action appraisal in naturalistic narratives.Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior · 2020Article
- Beyond the target area: an integrative view of tDCS-induced motor cortex modulation in patients and athletes.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation · 2019Review
- The time course of ineffective sham-blinding during low-intensity (1 mA) transcranial direct current stimulation.The European journal of neuroscience · 2019Article
- Fluid intelligence and working memory support dissociable aspects of learning by physical but not observational practice.Cognition · 2019Article
- Neural basis of induced phantom limb pain relief.Annals of neurology · 2019Article
- Variable Neural Contributions to Explicit and Implicit Learning During Visuomotor Adaptation.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
When learning a new motor skill, we benefit from watching others. It has been suggested that observation of others' actions can build a motor representation in the observer, and as such, physical and observational learning might share a similar neural basis. If physical and observational learning share a similar neural basis, then motor cortex stimulation during observational practice should similarly enhance learning by observation as it does through physical practice. Here, we used transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) to address whether anodal stimulation to M1 during observational training facilitates skill acquisition. Participants learned keypress sequences across four consecutive days of observational practice while receiving active or sham stimulation over M1. The results demonstrated that active stimulation provided no advantage to skill learning over sham stimulation. Further, Bayesian analyses revealed evidence in favour of the null hypothesis across our dependent measures. Our findings therefore provide no support for the hypothesis that excitatory M1 stimulation can enhance observational learning in a similar manner to physical learning. More generally, the results add to a growing literature that suggests that the effects of tDCS tend to be small, inconsistent, and hard to replicate. Future tDCS research should consider these factors when designing experimental procedures.
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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.