The Impact of Different tDCS Intensities on Higher Mental Function in the Elderly Population with Cognitive Impairment: A Pilot Study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Introduction: Cognitive decline in the geriatric population significantly impacts higher mental functions, such as memory, executive skills, and decision-making, which are essential for daily life and mental well-being. Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS), a noninvasive and low-risk neuromodulation technique, has demonstrated the potential in improving cognitive performance by modulating cortical excitability in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Despite its growing use, the optimal tDCS intensity for enhancing higher mental functions in elderly individuals with cognitive impairment has not been established. Aim: To evaluate the effects of varying tDCS intensities on higher mental functions in the geriatric population with cognitive impairment. Materials and Methods: This pilot study recruited participants based on specific inclusion criteria. Subjects were randomised into four groups: Group 1 received 0.5 mA, Group 2 received 1 mA, Group 3 received 1.5 mA, and Group 4 received 2 mA of tDCS targeting the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Each session lasted 20 minutes and was conducted five days a week for six consecutive weeks. Cognitive performance was assessed using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Scale (MoCA) before and after the intervention. Statistical analysis included the Shapiro-Wilk test for normality, with parametric or non-parametric tests applied based on data distribution. Results: The study observed a dose-dependent improvement in cognitive performance, with Groups 3 (1.5 mA) and 4 (2 mA) showing significant enhancements in MoCA scores compared to Groups 1 (0.5 mA) and 2 (1 mA). Statistical tests confirmed that higher intensities of tDCS resulted in greater improvements in higher mental functions. Conclusion: This pilot study highlights the effectiveness of higher tDCS intensities (1.5 and 2 mA) in improving higher mental functions in the geriatric population with cognitive impairment. These findings provide a foundation for optimising tDCS protocols in geriatric cognitive rehabilitation and call for further large-scale studies to confirm these results.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".