Abstract

Deficiencies in response inhibition are associated with numerous mental health conditions, warranting innovative treatments. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), a non-invasive brain stimulation technique, modulates cortical excitability and has shown promise in improving response inhibition. However, tDCS effects on response inhibition often yield contradictory findings. Previous research emphasized the importance of inter-individual factors that are mostly ignored in conventional meta-analyses of mean effects. We aimed to fill this gap and promote the complementary use of the coefficient of variation ratio and standardized mean effects. The systematic literature search included single-session and sham-controlled tDCS studies utilizing stop-signal task or Go-NoGo tasks, analyzing 88 effect sizes from 53 studies. Considering the impact of inter-individual factors, we hypothesized that variances increase in the active versus sham tDCS. However, the results showed that variances between both groups did not differ. Additionally, analyzing standardized mean effects supported previous research showing an improvement in the stop-signal task but not in the Go-NoGo task following active tDCS. These findings suggest that inter-individual differences do not increase variances in response inhibition, implying that the heterogeneity cannot be attributed to higher variance in response inhibition during and after active tDCS. Furthermore, methodological considerations are crucial for tDCS efficacy.

Details

Title
Meta-analysis of variance in tDCS effects on response inhibition
Author
Lasogga, Luca 1 ; Gramegna, Chiara 2 ; Müller, Dario 3 ; Habel, Ute 4 ; Mehler, David M. A. 5 ; Gur, Ruben C. 6 ; Weidler, Carmen 3 

 RWTH Aachen, Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Faculty of Medicine, Aachen, Germany (GRID:grid.1957.a) (ISNI:0000 0001 0728 696X); Aachen, Germany (GRID:grid.1957.a) 
 University of Milano-Bicocca, PhD Program in Neuroscience, School of Medicine and Surgery, Monza, Italy (GRID:grid.7563.7) (ISNI:0000 0001 2174 1754) 
 RWTH Aachen, Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Faculty of Medicine, Aachen, Germany (GRID:grid.1957.a) (ISNI:0000 0001 0728 696X) 
 RWTH Aachen, Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Faculty of Medicine, Aachen, Germany (GRID:grid.1957.a) (ISNI:0000 0001 0728 696X); JARA-Institute Brain Structure Function Relationship (INM 10), Research Center Jülich, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine, Jülich, Germany (GRID:grid.8385.6) (ISNI:0000 0001 2297 375X) 
 RWTH Aachen, Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Faculty of Medicine, Aachen, Germany (GRID:grid.1957.a) (ISNI:0000 0001 0728 696X); University of Münster, Institute for Translational Psychiatry, Münster, Germany (GRID:grid.5949.1) (ISNI:0000 0001 2172 9288); Cardiff University, Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), School of Psychology, Cardiff, UK (GRID:grid.5600.3) (ISNI:0000 0001 0807 5670) 
 University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Brain Behavior Laboratories, Department of Psychiatry, Philadelphia, USA (GRID:grid.25879.31) (ISNI:0000 0004 1936 8972) 
Pages
19197
Publication year
2024
Publication date
2024
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20452322
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
3094595770
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2024. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.