About this Research Topic

Background

Transcranial electrical stimulation (tES) has emerged as a cost-effective and reliable way to non-invasively study and modulate brain physiology, as well as treat neuropsychiatric disorders. Starting with the re-introduction of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and later transcranial alternating (tACS) and random noise (tRNS), the field of tES has seen some major advancements in technical developments and applications.

While the field of non-invasive brain stimulation in general, and tES specifically has exploded over these last two decades, it has not been without its fair share of challenges. There still exists a gap in knowledge about the basic mechanistic details of the neuromodulatory effects of tES, as well as optimal stimulation parameters for specific brain regions and/or behavioral modalities, and their transferability from basic research in healthy humans to clinical treatments in patient populations. Secondly, the effects of stimulation have been shown to vary with the protocols as well as the participants/patient populations

In this Research Topic, we aim to understand the progress we have made, and the future directions of the application of tES in healthy as well as clinical populations. First, this Research Topic will elucidate our understanding of how tES can be used to study brain regions and modulate behavior through the induction of neuroplasticity. Secondly, the linkage between the mechanistic knowledge of tES neuromodulatory effects and behavior through combinations with other non-invasive and neuroimaging techniques as well as computational modeling will be explored. Lastly, we hope to tease out valuable information on the use of tES across populations and brain regions, setting the stage for discussions about the future of this field.


We hope authors submitting a manuscript have met at least one of the following criteria:


1. Exploration of mechanistic effects of tES in different brain regions and populations.

2. Progress in the combination of tES and neuroimaging methods such as electroencephalography (EEG), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and/or structural magnetic spectroscopy (MRS), and functional near infra-red spectroscopy (fNIRS) in a multimodal understanding of brain functions and behavior.

3. Randomised controlled trials with tES.

4. Primary studies with tES exploring new modalities of application or new stimulation parameters in healthy and clinical populations.

5. Computational modeling of tES effects in brain regions and their possible correlation with behavioral data.

6. Review papers in experimental and clinical. application of tES in healthy and clinical populations.

7. Opinion papers on the future of the field of tES in Neuroscience.

Keywords: tDCS, tACS, tRNS, basic neuroscience, clinical neuroscience

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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