SynthesisFrontiers in human neuroscience2022
Effects of transcranial direct current stimulation on motor skills learning in healthy adults through the activation of different brain regions: A systematic review.
Synthesis in Frontiers in human neuroscience, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 25 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effects of transcranial direct current stimulation on pain and function in patients with knee osteoarthritis: A systematic review and meta-analysis.PM & R : the journal of injury, function, and rehabilitation · 2026Pooled it
- Adjunctive transcranial direct current stimulation for cognitive improvement in schizophrenia: insights from a systematic review and exploratory meta-analysis.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- Trial
- Effects of HD-tDCS targeting prefrontal cortex, cerebellum, and motor cortex on dual-task gait in older adults.Scientific reports · 2025Trial
- Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation and Core Stabilization Enhance Shooting Performance and Balance in Athletes: A Randomized Controlled Trial.Medical science monitor : international medical journal of experimental and clinical research · 2025Trial
- Effects of repeated unihemispheric concurrent dual-site tDCS and virtual reality games on motor coordination of sedentary adolescent girls.Behavioral and brain functions : BBF · 2024Trial
- Impact of immersive virtual reality and transcranial direct current stimulation over the parietal cortex on motor response.AIMS neuroscience · 2026Article
- Concurrent Bilateral M1 and Anodal Cerebellar tDCS Effects on Learning of a Bimanual Video Game Task.Brain and behavior · 2025Article
- The Influence of Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation on the Excitability of the Unstimulated Contralateral Primary Motor Cortex.Brain sciences · 2025Article
- Resolving inconsistent effects of tDCS on learning using a homeostatic structural plasticity model.Frontiers in network physiology · 2025Article
- Investigations of motor performance with neuromodulation and exoskeleton using leader-follower modality: a tDCS study.Experimental brain research · 2024Article
- The Physiological Mechanisms of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation to Enhance Motor Performance: A Narrative Review.Biology · 2024Review
- Motor Learning in a Complex Motor Task Is Unaffected by Three Consecutive Days of Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation.Bioengineering (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Non-Dominant Hemisphere Excitability Is Unaffected during and after Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation of the Dominant Hemisphere.Brain sciences · 2024Article
- Transcranial direct current stimulation for chronic headaches, a randomized, controlled trial.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation of Primary Motor Cortex over Multiple Days Improves Motor Learning of a Complex Overhand Throwing Task.Brain sciences · 2023Article
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 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Objective: This systematic review aims to analyze existing literature of the effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on motor skills learning of healthy adults and discuss the underlying neurophysiological mechanism that influences motor skills learning. Methods: This systematic review has followed the recommendations of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses. The PubMed, EBSCO, and Web of Science databases were systematically searched for relevant studies that were published from database inception to May 2022. Studies were included based on the Participants, Intervention, Comparison, Outcomes, and Setting inclusion strategy. The risk of bias was evaluated by using the Review manager 5.4 tool. The quality of each study was assessed with the Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) scale. Results: The electronic search produced 142 studies. Only 11 studies were included after filtering. These studies performed well in terms of distribution, blinding availability and selective reporting. They reported that tDCS significantly improved motor skills learning. The main outcomes measure were the improvement of the motor sequence tasks and specific motor skills. Nine studies showed that tDCS interventions reduced reaction time to complete motor sequence tasks in healthy adults and two studies showed that tDCS interventions improved golf putting task performance. Conclusion: The included studies showed that tDCS can help healthy adults to improve the motor skills learning by activating different brain regions, such as the primary motor cortex, left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and right cerebellum. However, the number of included studies was limited, and the sample sizes were small. Therefore, more studies are urgently needed to validate the results of current studies and further explore the underlying neurophysiological mechanisms of tDCS in the future.
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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.