No facilitatory effects of transcranial random noise stimulation on motion processing: A registered report

Abstract

Non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) techniques have the potential to demonstrate the causal impact of targeted brain regions on specific behaviors, and to regulate or facilitate behavior in clinical applications. Transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS) is one form of transcranial electric stimulation (tES) in which an alternating current is passed between electrodes at random frequencies. High-frequency tRNS (hf-tRNS) is thought to enhance excitability and has been reported to have facilitatory effects on behavior in healthy and clinical populations. Due to the potential application of tRNS, clear demonstrations of the efficacy and replicability of stimulation are critical. Here, we focused on replicating the facilitatory effect of hf-tRNS over the human middle temporal complex (hMT+) on contralateral motion processing, initially demonstrated by Ghin et al. (2018). In this prior study, the improvement in performance was specific to global motion processing in the visual field contralateral to stimulation. The motivation to replicate this effect was reinforced by the well-supported hypothesis that hMT+ is critical for contralateral global motion processing. However, our results indicated that hf-tRNS does not improve motion discrimination. Specifically, we were unable to replicate a contralateral global motion processing facilitation following hf-tRNS to hMT+. In our within-subject controls, we also found no difference between hf-tRNS to hMT+ on contralateral global motion processing in comparison to sham stimulation, or in comparison to hf-tRNS to the forehead. While it remains possible that our lack of replication could be due to minor changes in the protocol from the original Ghin et al., study, for hf-tRNS to become a widely applied method, the modulatory effect of hf-tRNS should be robust to slight adjustments to the procedure.