ArticleScientific reports2020
Combined behavioral and electrophysiological evidence for a direct cortical effect of prefrontal tDCS on disorders of consciousness.
Article in Scientific reports, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 43 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
43 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 88 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effects of non-invasive brain stimulation on arousal and alertness among traumatic brain injury patients with disorders of consciousness or persistent vegetative State: a systematic review.Acta neurologica Belgica · 2025Pooled it
- Managing disorders of consciousness: the role of electroencephalography.Journal of neurology · 2021Pooled it
- Cognitive and neurophysiological effects of bilateral tDCS neuromodulation in patients with minimally conscious state.Scientific reports · 2025Trial
- Integrating task-state electroencephalography and motor function for intelligent assessment of recovery status from prolonged disorders of consciousness.BMC neurology · 2026Article
- Non-invasive neuroregulation techniques applied to patients with consciousness disorders: a narrative review.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2026Review
- Multidimensional EEG mechanisms and explainable prediction of responsiveness to posterior parietal HD-tDCS in chronic disorders of consciousness.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Article
- Transcranial direct current stimulation modulates primate brain dynamics across states of consciousness.eLife · 2025Article
- CATATOnia treatment with transcranial direct current electrostimulation: protocol of a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled bicentric superiority study (CATATOES).BMC psychiatry · 2025Article
- Characterization of responders to transcranial direct current stimulation in disorders of consciousness: A retrospective study of 8 clinical trials.Neurotherapeutics : the journal of the American Society for Experimental NeuroTherapeutics · 2025Article
- Globus pallidus externus correlates with arousal in disorders of consciousness: a resting-state functional MRI study.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2025Article
- Cognitive Effects of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Plus Robotic Verticalization in Minimally Conscious State.Biomedicines · 2024Article
- An update on noninvasive neuromodulation in the treatment of patients with prolonged disorders of consciousness.CNS neuroscience & therapeutics · 2024Review
- Brain state identification and neuromodulation to promote recovery of consciousness.Brain communications · 2024Review
- Neurophysiological and Psychometric Outcomes in Minimal Consciousness State after Advanced Audio-Video Emotional Stimulation: A Retrospective Study.Brain sciences · 2023Article
- Advances in Stroke Neurorehabilitation.Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Review
- A Comparison of the Neuromodulation Effects of Frontal and Parietal Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on Disorders of Consciousness.Brain sciences · 2023Article
- Assessing Consciousness through Neurofeedback and Neuromodulation: Possibilities and Challenges.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- Article
- Dynamic sensitivity analysis: Defining personalised strategies to drive brain state transitions via whole brain modelling.Computational and structural biotechnology journal · 2023Review
- Safety and therapeutic effects of personalized transcranial direct current stimulation based on electrical field simulation for prolonged disorders of consciousness: study protocol for a multi-center, double-blind, randomized controlled trial.Frontiers in neurology · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
14 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Severe brain injuries can lead to long-lasting disorders of consciousness (DoC) such as vegetative state/unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (VS/UWS) or minimally conscious state (MCS). While behavioral assessment remains the gold standard to determine conscious state, EEG has proven to be a promising complementary tool to monitor the effect of new therapeutics. Encouraging results have been obtained with invasive electrical stimulation of the brain, and recent studies identified transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) as an effective approach in randomized controlled trials. This non-invasive and inexpensive tool may turn out to be the preferred treatment option. However, its mechanisms of action and physiological effects on brain activity remain unclear and debated. Here, we stimulated 60 DoC patients with the anode placed over left-dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in a prospective open-label study. Clinical behavioral assessment improved in twelve patients (20%) and none deteriorated. This behavioral response after tDCS coincided with an enhancement of putative EEG markers of consciousness: in comparison with non-responders, responders showed increases of power and long-range cortico-cortical functional connectivity in the theta-alpha band, and a larger and more sustained P300 suggesting improved conscious access to auditory novelty. The EEG changes correlated with electric fields strengths in prefrontal cortices, and no correlation was found on the scalp. Taken together, this prospective intervention in a large cohort of DoC patients strengthens the validity of the proposed EEG signatures of consciousness, and is suggestive of a direct causal effect of tDCS on consciousness.
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