The effect of transcranial direct current and magnetic stimulation on fear extinction and return of fear: A meta-analysis and systematic review.

BACKGROUND

We conducted a meta-analysis and qualitative review on the randomized controlled trials investigating the effects of transcranial direct current stimulation and transcranial magnetic stimulation on fear extinction and the return of fear in non-primate animals and humans.

METHODS

The meta-analysis was conducted by searching PubMed, Web of science, PsycINFO, and Cochrane Library and extracting fear response in the active and sham groups in the randomized controlled trials. The pooled effect size was quantified by Hedges' g using a three-level meta-analytic model in R.

RESULTS

We identified 18 articles on the tDCS effect and 5 articles on the TMS effect, with 466 animal subjects and 621 human subjects. Our findings show that tDCS of the prefrontal cortex significantly inhibit fear retrieval in animal models (Hedges' g = -0.50). In human studies, TMS targeting the dorsolateral/ventromedial prefrontal cortex has an inhibiting effect on the return of fear (Hedges' g = -0.24).

LIMITATIONS: The limited number of studies and the heterogeneous designs of the selected studies made cross-study and cross-species comparison difficult.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings shed light on the optimal non-invasive brain stimulation protocols for targeting the neural circuitry of threat extinction in humans.