Brain Stimul
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Review Meta Analysis
Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation Improves Paretic Limb Force Production: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
Non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) facilitates motor improvements post stroke. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) are representative NIBS techniques frequently used in stroke motor rehabilitation. Our primary question is: Do these two techniques improve force production capability in paretic limbs? ⋯ Cumulative meta-analytic results revealed that tDCS and rTMS rehabilitation protocols successfully improved paretic limb force production capabilities.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Boosting Slow Oscillatory Activity Using tDCS during Early Nocturnal Slow Wave Sleep Does Not Improve Memory Consolidation in Healthy Older Adults.
Previous studies have demonstrated an enhancement of hippocampal-dependent declarative memory consolidation, associated slow wave sleep (SWS) and slow wave activity (SWA) after weak slow oscillatory stimulation (so-tDCS) during early non-rapid eye movement sleep (NREM) in young adults. Recent studies in older individuals could not confirm these findings. However, it remained unclear if this difference was due to variations in study protocol or to the age group under study. ⋯ so-tDCS increased SWA and spindle activity in older adults, events previously associated with stimulation-induced improved consolidation of declarative memories in young subjects. However, consolidation of visuo-spatial (primary outcome) and verbal memories was not beneficially modulated, possibly due to decline in SWS over the entire night that may have prevented and even reversed immediate beneficial effects of so-tDCS on SWA.
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Why are weak sensory stimuli sometimes perceived and other times not? Experimental paradigms using near-threshold stimuli suggest that spontaneous brain network dynamics are involved in separating relevant from irrelevant information. Recent findings in human visual perception provide evidence that the immediate spontaneous brain state, i.e. the phase of alpha oscillations, predicts whether a coinciding stimulus is further processed or not. ⋯ Our data indicate that tACS applied at an endogenous frequency is capable of modulating human somatosensory perception by inducing phase-dependent periods of excitation and inhibition, i.e. entraining ongoing mu-alpha oscillations. These findings support the idea that the "pulsed inhibition" framework for sensory gating applies to somatosensory mu-alpha oscillations and might therefore represent a general, but sensory-specific mechanism of conscious human perception.