SynthesisSocial cognitive and affective neuroscience2018
Does transcranial direct current stimulation to the prefrontal cortex affect social behavior? A meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 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.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on Anger and Aggression.Aggressive behavior · 2025Pooled it
- Meta-analysis of variance in tDCS effects on response inhibition.Scientific reports · 2024Pooled it
- Evidence-based umbrella review of cognitive effects of prefrontal tDCS.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2022Pooled it
- Does non-invasive brain stimulation modulate emotional stress reactivity?Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2020Pooled it
- When brain stimulation backfires: the effects of prefrontal cortex stimulation on impulsivity.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2022Trial
- An examination of the influence of prefrontal cortical brain stimulation on sexual decision making.Oxford open neuroscience · 2026Article
- Effectiveness of Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation (NIBS) in Overeating and Increased Body Mass Index (BMI): An Umbrella Review.Clinical neuropsychiatry · 2025Review
- Cerebellar non-invasive stimulation of social and emotional mentalizing: A meta-analysis.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2024Article
- Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation for the Modulation of Aggressive Behavior-A Systematic Review of Randomized Sham-Controlled Studies.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- Hostility bias or sadness bias in excluded individuals: does anodal transcranial direct current stimulation of right VLPFC vs. left DLPFC have a mitigating effect?Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2022Article
- Combinatorial approaches for treating neuropsychiatric social impairment.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Review
- Transcranial electric stimulation as a neural interface to gain insight on human brain functions: current knowledge and future perspective.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2022Review
- Both High Cognitive Load and Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Over the Right Inferior Frontal Cortex Make Truth and Lie Responses More Similar.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
This meta-analysis (k = 48, N = 2196) examined the effect of transcranial direct current brain stimulation (tDCS) applied to the prefrontal cortex on a variety of social behaviors, including aggression, overeating, impulsivity, bias, honesty, and risk-taking. tDCS showed an overall significant effect on reducing undesirable behaviors, with an average effect size of d = -0.20. tDCS was most effective at reducing risk-taking behavior, bias, and overeating. tDCS did not affect aggression, impulsivity, or dishonesty. We examined moderators such as brain region of interest, online vs offline stimulation, within- vs between-subjects designs, dose, and duration, but none showed significant interactions. We also tested for potential publication bias using two different tools, which indicated signs of publication bias in the literature. After correcting for potential publication bias, the effect of tDCS was still significant, but the size was reduced (d = -0.10). These findings suggest the presence of tDCS studies with null findings outside of the published literature. Taken together, these results suggest that although tDCS can reduce undesirable behaviors, researchers should consider the types of behaviors they measure and use strategies to ensure sufficient power to detect a possible effect of tDCS on social behavior.
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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.