Trial reportJournal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation2021
Transcranial electrostimulation with special waveforms enhances upper-limb motor function in patients with chronic stroke: a pilot randomized controlled trial.
Trial report in Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT04369235 (Transcranial Electrical Stimulation With Special Waveform for Upper Extremity Rehabilitation for Patients With Stroke), which is not on this map. Cited by 9 papers, 2 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.
Transcranial Electrical Stimulation With Special Waveform for Upper Extremity Rehabilitation for Patients With Stroke
Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 14 citations in OpenAlex.
- Enhancing functional motor outcomes in chronic stroke: A systematic review of the growing role of non-invasive brain stimulation.PloS one · 2025Pooled it
- Research trends and hotspots of post-stroke upper limb dysfunction: a bibliometric and visualization analysis.Frontiers in neurology · 2024Pooled it
- Effect of Cathodal Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation for Lower Limb Subacute Stroke Rehabilitation.Neural plasticity · 2023Trial
- The clinical efficacy and mechanism of gamma frequency electroacupuncture stimulation on the rehabilitation of upper limb motor function in stroke patients: study protocol of a randomized clinical trial.Frontiers in neurology · 2025Article
- Article
- Transcranial burst electrical stimulation contributes to neuromodulatory effects in the rat motor cortex.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2023Article
- Efficacy of Neurostimulations for Upper Extremity Function Recovery after Stroke: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-Analysis.Journal of clinical medicine · 2022Article
- Motor Neuroplastic Effects of a Novel Paired Stimulation Technology in an Incomplete Spinal Cord Injury Animal Model.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Article
- Safety of Special Waveform of Transcranial Electrical Stimulation (TES): In Vivo Assessment.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundTranscranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and intermittent theta burst stimulation (iTBS) were both demonstrated to have therapeutic potentials to rapidly induce neuroplastic effects in various rehabilitation training regimens. Recently, we developed a novel transcranial electrostimulation device that can flexibly output an electrical current with combined tDCS and iTBS waveforms. However, limited studies have determined the therapeutic effects of this special waveform combination on clinical rehabilitation. Herein, we investigated brain stimulation effects of tDCS-iTBS on upper-limb motor function in chronic stroke patients.
methodsTwenty-four subjects with a chronic stroke were randomly assigned to a real non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS; who received the real tDCS + iTBS output) group or a sham NIBS (who received sham tDCS + iTBS output) group. All subjects underwent 18 treatment sessions of 1 h of a conventional rehabilitation program (3 days a week for 6 weeks), where a 20-min NIBS intervention was simultaneously applied during conventional rehabilitation. Outcome measures were assessed before and immediately after the intervention period: Fugl-Meyer Assessment-Upper Extremity (FMA-UE), Jebsen-Taylor Hand Function Test (JTT), and Finger-to-Nose Test (FNT).
resultsBoth groups showed improvements in FMA-UE, JTT, and FNT scores after the 6-week rehabilitation program. Notably, the real NIBS group had greater improvements in the JTT (p = 0. 016) and FNT (p = 0. 037) scores than the sham NIBS group, as determined by the Mann-Whitney rank-sum test.
conclusionsPatients who underwent the combined ipsilesional tDCS-iTBS stimulation with conventional rehabilitation exhibited greater impacts than did patients who underwent sham stimulation-conventional rehabilitation in statistically significant clinical responses of the total JTT time and FNT after the stroke. Preliminary results of upper-limb functional recovery suggest that tDCS-iTBS combined with a conventional rehabilitation intervention may be a promising strategy to enhance therapeutic benefits in future clinical settings.
trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04369235. Registered on 30 April 2020.
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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.