Evidence map›Paper›PMID 30020922›Full record

ArticlePLoS computational biology2018

Stochastic resonance enhances the rate of evidence accumulation during combined brain stimulation and perceptual decision-making.

Onno van der Groen, Matthew F Tang, Nicole Wenderoth, Jason B Mattingley

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in PLoS computational biology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
34citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from 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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

34 citing papers in PubMed.

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  5. Boosting Learning Efficacy with Noninvasive Brain Stimulation in Intact and Brain-Damaged Humans.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2019
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  6. Subtle to significant: Enhancing heaviness perception with stochastic resonance.Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance · 2026
    Article
  7. Article
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  10. Review
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  13. Behavioural stochastic resonance across the lifespan.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2024
    Article
  14. Review
  15. Article
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Onno van der GroenNeural Control of Movement Laboratory, Department of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.ORCID 0000-0002-4509-7518
Matthew F TangQueensland Brain Institute, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia.ORCID 0000-0001-5858-5126
Nicole WenderothNeural Control of Movement Laboratory, Department of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.ORCID 0000-0002-3246-9386
Jason B MattingleyQueensland Brain Institute, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia.ORCID 0000-0003-0929-9216

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Perceptual decision-making relies on the gradual accumulation of noisy sensory evidence. It is often assumed that such decisions are degraded by adding noise to a stimulus, or to the neural systems involved in the decision making process itself. But it has been suggested that adding an optimal amount of noise can, under appropriate conditions, enhance the quality of subthreshold signals in nonlinear systems, a phenomenon known as stochastic resonance. Here we asked whether perceptual decisions made by human observers obey these stochastic resonance principles, by adding noise directly to the visual cortex using transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS) while participants judged the direction of coherent motion in random-dot kinematograms presented at the fovea. We found that adding tRNS bilaterally to visual cortex enhanced decision-making when stimuli were just below perceptual threshold, but not when they were well below or above threshold. We modelled the data under a drift diffusion framework, and showed that bilateral tRNS selectively increased the drift rate parameter, which indexes the rate of evidence accumulation. Our study is the first to provide causal evidence that perceptual decision-making is susceptible to a stochastic resonance effect induced by tRNS, and to show that this effect arises from selective enhancement of the rate of evidence accumulation for sub-threshold sensory events.

Indexed as

Decision MakingModels, NeurologicalNoiseAdolescentAdultComputer SimulationFemaleHumansMaleMotion PerceptionStochastic ProcessesVisual CortexVisual PerceptionYoung Adult

Identifiers

PMID30020922
PMCPMC6066257

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

None linked

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.