Godoi, Diogo C., Pandiá, Eduarda, Rodrigues, Maria Eduarda, Araújo, Luísa, Barbosa, Marina, Alhwaishel, Khaled, Godoi, Amanda and McGonigle, David J  ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9595-6352
2025.
Linguistic effects of transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) in patients with primary progressive aphasia: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials.
Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
176
, 106264.
10.1016/j.neubiorev.2025.106264
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Abstract
Introduction Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) has shown promising language improvements in patients with primary progressive aphasia (PPA). Yet, individual studies have not been sufficient to yield strong conclusions on its efficacy. Methods We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) comparing tDCS against sham stimulation in patients with PPA. We searched PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Central databases for eligible studies up to July 2024. Outcomes of interest included a performance in a range of language and cognitive tests. Summary data was extracted from published reports and pooled with a random-effects model using standardized mean differences (SMD) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). The protocol was registered in PROSPERO, CRD42024499012. Results We included 10 parallel and cross-over RCTs with 178 patients and 218 observations. tDCS yielded significant improvements for general naming (SMD 0.37; 95% CI 0.07 to 0.67; p<0.01) and spelling ability (SMD 0.65; 95% CI 0.10 to 1.20; p=0.02) There were no differences between groups regarding naming performance for trained (p=0.78) and untrained items (p=0.11), global language (p=0.28), working memory (p=0.15), semantic fluency (p=0.38), and comprehension (p=0.32). Conclusion In this systematic review and meta-analysis, tDCA showed benefits for performance in general naming ability and spelling in PPA patients. However, there was no significant evidence to supporting any effect of tDCS on other language functions.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Date Type: | Publication |
| Status: | Published |
| Schools: | Schools > Psychology Schools > Medicine Schools > Biosciences Research Institutes & Centres > Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC) |
| Additional Information: | License information from Publisher: LICENSE 1: URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, Start Date: 2025-06-19 |
| Publisher: | Elsevier |
| ISSN: | 0149-7634 |
| Date of First Compliant Deposit: | 25 June 2025 |
| Date of Acceptance: | 14 June 2025 |
| Last Modified: | 25 Jun 2025 11:32 |
| URI: | https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/179324 |
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