ArticlePLoS biology2022
Brain stimulation competes with ongoing oscillations for control of spike timing in the primate brain.
Article in PLoS biology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 55 papers, 1 of them a synthesis 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
55 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The modulation of steady-state responses by transcranial alternating current stimulation: a scoping review.Frontiers in systems neuroscience · 2025Pooled it
- Non-invasive stimulation of the human striatum disrupts reinforcement learning of motor skills.Nature human behaviour · 2024Trial
- Neuromodulation for restoring and amplifying brain function.Nature neuroscience · 2026Review
- Temporal interference stimulation for deep brain neuromodulation in humans.Nature biomedical engineering · 2026Review
- Hemispheric Dissociation Revealed by Attentional Isolation and Transcranial Random Noise Stimulation.Journal of cognitive neuroscience · 2026Article
- It's not just the phase: Frequency-dependent tuning of neuronal firing.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Traveling-wave transcranial alternating current stimulation (twtACS) causally links neural timing to cognitive function.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Roadmap towards personalized approaches and safety considerations in non-ionizing radiation: from dosimetry to therapeutic and diagnostic applications.Physics in medicine and biology · 2026Review
- Intensity-dependent tACS entrainment effects in a cortical microcircuit: a computational study.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation for Pain: Mixed Evidence and the Path to Precision Neuromodulation.Brain sciences · 2026Review
- Article
- Restoring Vision with Noninvasive Brain Stimulation: A Narrative Review.Ophthalmology and therapy · 2025Review
- Multi-scale model of neural entrainment by transcranial alternating current stimulation in realistic cortical anatomy.Journal of computational neuroscience · 2025Article
- Brain stimulation preferentially influences long-range projections.Science advances · 2025Article
- Enhancing visual perception by modulating prestimulus alpha and beta power with tRNS.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Network Desynchronization with Sine Waves: from Synchrony to Asynchrony by Periodic Stimulation.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- Layers of the monkey visual cortex are selectively modulated during electrical stimulation.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- γ neuromodulations: unraveling biomarkers for neurological and psychiatric disorders.Military Medical Research · 2025Review
- Sensory stimuli dominate over rhythmic electrical stimulation in modulating behavior.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- μ-Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation Induces Phasic Entrainment and Plastic Facilitation of Corticospinal Excitability.The European journal of neuroscience · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) is a popular method for modulating brain activity noninvasively. In particular, tACS is often used as a targeted intervention that enhances a neural oscillation at a specific frequency to affect a particular behavior. However, these interventions often yield highly variable results. Here, we provide a potential explanation for this variability: tACS competes with the brain's ongoing oscillations. Using neural recordings from alert nonhuman primates, we find that when neural firing is independent of ongoing brain oscillations, tACS readily entrains spiking activity, but when neurons are strongly entrained to ongoing oscillations, tACS often causes a decrease in entrainment instead. Consequently, tACS can yield categorically different results on neural activity, even when the stimulation protocol is fixed. Mathematical analysis suggests that this competition is likely to occur under many experimental conditions. Attempting to impose an external rhythm on the brain may therefore often yield precisely the opposite effect.
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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.