Quantitative review finds no evidence of cognitive effects in healthy populations from single-session transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)

Abstract

Background: Over the last 15-years, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), a relatively novel form of neuromodulation, has seen a surge of popularity in both clinical and academic settings. Despite numerous claims suggesting that a single session of tDCS can modulate cognition in healthy adult populations (especially working memory and language production), the paradigms utilized and results reported in the literature are extremely variable. To address this, we conduct the largest quantitative review of the cognitive data to date. Methods: Single-session tDCS data in healthy adults (18e50) from every cognitive outcome measure reported by at least two different research groups in the..