ArticleTranslational psychiatry2021
Transcranial direct current stimulation induces long-term potentiation-like plasticity in the human visual cortex.
Article in Translational psychiatry, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 32 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The trial behind it
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Who cites it
32 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 52 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effects of robotic therapy associated with noninvasive brain stimulation on motor function in individuals with incomplete spinal cord injury: A systematic review of randomized controlled trials.The journal of spinal cord medicine · 2025Pooled it
- Transcranial ultrasound stimulation parameters for neurological diseases: a systematic review.Frontiers in neurology · 2025Pooled it
- Effects and safety of transcranial direct current stimulation on multiple health outcomes: an umbrella review of randomized clinical trials.Molecular psychiatry · 2024Pooled it
- Effects of transcranial direct current stimulation combined with retrieval practice on semantic memory in patients with schizophrenia.BMC psychiatry · 2025Trial
- The combined effect of neuro-modulation and neuro-stimulation on pain in patients with cervical radiculopathy - a double-blinded, two-arm parallel randomized controlled trial.The journal of spinal cord medicine · 2025Trial
- Independent effects of transcranial direct current stimulation and social influence on pain.Pain · 2025Trial
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- Lasting effects of transcranial direct current stimulation on the inducibility of synaptic plasticity by paired-associative stimulation in humans.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation · 2024Trial
- Neurostimulation in the treatment of psychiatric disorders: Underlying mechanisms and critical analysis of circuit-based interventions.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Review
- A brief visual evoked potential (VEP) modulation assessment of experience-dependent plasticity recorded via wireless dry-EEG headset in Phase 1 clinical units.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Frequency-dependent photic modulation of wakeful consolidation in visual learning.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Development of VEP-based biomarkers to assess plasticity states.Translational psychiatry · 2025Article
- From Immediate Impact to Enduring Change: A Transcriptomic Comparison of tDCS's Temporal Effects and Its Long-Term Equivalence with TMS.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Article
- The Potential for Neuromodulation in the Treatment of Alzheimer's Disease: A Review of Clinical Trials.Cureus · 2025Review
- Effects of transcranial direct current stimulation on language recovery in chronic post-stroke aphasia.Current journal of neurology · 2025Article
- Enhancing golf swing performance through M1-targeted transcranial direct current stimulation: a double-blind, randomized crossover study.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2025Article
- Direct current stimulation modulates prefrontal cell activity and behaviour without inducing seizure-like firing.Brain : a journal of neurology · 2024Article
- Article
- Rapidly repeated visual stimulation induces long-term potentiation of VEPs and increased content of membrane AMPA and NMDA receptors in the V1 cortex of cats.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is increasingly used as a form of noninvasive brain stimulation to treat psychiatric disorders; however, its mechanism of action remains unclear. Prolonged visual stimulation (PVS) can enhance evoked EEG potentials (visually evoked potentials, VEPs) and has been proposed as a tool to examine long-term potentiation (LTP) in humans. The objective of the current study was to induce and analyze VEP plasticity and examine whether tDCS could either modulate or mimic plasticity changes induced by PVS. Thirty-eight healthy participants received tDCS, PVS, either treatment combined or neither treatment, with stimulation sessions being separated by one week. One session consisted of a baseline VEP measurement, one stimulation block, and six test VEP measurements. For PVS, a checkerboard reversal pattern was presented, and for tDCS, a constant current of 1 mA was applied via each bioccipital anodal target electrode for 10 min (Fig. S1). Both stimulation types decreased amplitudes of C1 compared to no stimulation (F = 10.1; p = 0.002) and led to a significantly smaller increase (PVS) or even decrease (tDCS) in N1 compared to no stimulation (F = 4.7; p = 0.034). While all stimulation types increased P1 amplitudes, the linear mixed effects model did not detect a significant difference between active stimulation and no stimulation. Combined stimulation induced sustained plastic modulation of C1 and N1 but with a smaller effect size than what would be expected for an additive effect. The results demonstrate that tDCS can directly induce LTP-like plasticity in the human cortex and suggest a mechanism of action of tDCS relying on the restoration of dysregulated synaptic plasticity in psychiatric disorders such as depression and schizophrenia.
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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.