ArticleNeurotherapeutics : the journal of the American Society for Experimental NeuroTherapeutics2025
Characterization of responders to transcranial direct current stimulation in disorders of consciousness: A retrospective study of 8 clinical trials.
Article in Neurotherapeutics : the journal of the American Society for Experimental NeuroTherapeutics, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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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
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Esketamine Preserves Network Connectivity and Promotes Recovery in Consciousness Disorders.CNS neuroscience & therapeutics · 2026Article
- Progress in non-invasive neuromodulation based on consciousness-related neural circuits: a narrative review.Frontiers in neurologyReview
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The treatment for patients with disorders of consciousness challenges researchers and clinicians. The stimulation of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) may enhance behavioral responsiveness of a subset of patients in a minimally conscious state, while having limited effects in unresponsive patients. However, heterogeneity in responses raises questions about the effectiveness of tDCS. Our objective was to explore the characteristics of responders to tDCS based on previously published RCTs and investigate the heterogeneity of treatment effect to better direct future tDCS studies towards patient profiles that appear to be more responsive to the treatment. We explored clinical and demographical differences between responders (i.e., recovery of a new sign of consciousness after active stimulation) and non-responder and the predictors of treatment response with a LASSO logistic regression. We included 131 patients (44 women, 61 traumatic brain injury, 90 minimally conscious, mean age 46.13 years [SD = 16], median time since injury 12.84 months [IQR: 5.25-35.10]) of which 33 responded to tDCS. While 32 % of minimally conscious patients responded to tDCS (95%CI 0.24, 0.43), 10 % (95%CI 0.04, 0.25) of those unresponsive responded. The regression model, using diagnosis at baseline, Coma Recovery Scale-Revised Index at baseline, age, sex and time since injury correctly discriminated between tDCS responders and non-responders (area under the curve of 0.77). Our findings suggest that patients in minimally conscious state, with a better cognitive profile and longer TSI respond better to tDCS, making them better candidates for the treatment.
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What Socratic holds
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 Socratic graph.