ArticleeLife2020
Cortical excitability controls the strength of mental imagery.
Article in eLife, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 29 papers.
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
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Who cites it
29 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- Predicting visual mental imagery: structural and transcriptomic signatures in the human brain.Communications biology · 2026Article
- Aesthetic experiences across visual perception and mental imagery: Behaviorally indistinguishable, neurally distinct.iScience · 2025Article
- Abnormalities of resting-state EEG microstates in older adults with cognitive frailty.GeroScience · 2025Article
- Hippocampal-occipital connectivity reflects autobiographical memory deficits in aphantasia.eLife · 2024Article
- A Systematic Review of Aphantasia: Concept, Measurement, Neural Basis, and Theory Development.Vision (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Uncovering the Role of the Early Visual Cortex in Visual Mental Imagery.Vision (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Working memory signals in early visual cortex are present in weak and strong imagers.Human brain mapping · 2024Article
- Intrinsic functional connectivity mediates the effect of personality traits on depressive symptoms.PloS one · 2024Article
- Article
- A novel model of divergent predictive perception.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2024Article
- Neural Representations in Visual and Parietal Cortex Differentiate between Imagined, Perceived, and Illusory Experiences.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2023Article
- Common neural substrates of diverse neurodevelopmental disorders.Brain : a journal of neurology · 2023Article
- Article
- Failure of tDCS to impact militarised threat-detection in a military cohort.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2023Article
- Decreased associative processing and memory confidence in aphantasia.Learning & memory (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.) · 2022Article
- Imagery adds stimulus-specific sensory evidence to perceptual detection.Journal of vision · 2022Article
- What is the Link Between Mental Imagery and Sensory Sensitivity? Insights from Aphantasia.Perception · 2021Article
- Neural Circuits, Microtubule Processing, Brain's Electromagnetic Field-Components of Self-Awareness.Brain sciences · 2021Review
- Mistaking imagination for reality: Congruent mental imagery leads to more liberal perceptual detection.Cognition · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Mental imagery provides an essential simulation tool for remembering the past and planning the future, with its strength affecting both cognition and mental health. Research suggests that neural activity spanning prefrontal, parietal, temporal, and visual areas supports the generation of mental images. Exactly how this network controls the strength of visual imagery remains unknown. Here, brain imaging and transcranial magnetic phosphene data show that lower resting activity and excitability levels in early visual cortex (V1-V3) predict stronger sensory imagery. Further, electrically decreasing visual cortex excitability using tDCS increases imagery strength, demonstrating a causative role of visual cortex excitability in controlling visual imagery. Together, these data suggest a neurophysiological mechanism of cortical excitability involved in controlling the strength of mental images.
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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.