SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Physiol.
Sec. Exercise Physiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphys.2025.1631905
This article is part of the Research TopicEmerging technologies in sports performance: data acquisition and analysisView all 6 articles
Meta-Analysis of the Acute Effects of Anodal Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on Athletic Performance
Provisionally accepted
- 1Northeast Normal University, Changchun, Jilin Province, China
- 2Nanchang Normal University, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China
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Objective: Systematically evaluate the acute effects of anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (a-tDCS) on athletes' sport-specific performance and identify the optimal stimulation parameters and target brain regions for enhancing sport-specific performance.: Search PubMed, Web of Science, CNKI, Wanfang, and other databases to include randomized controlled trials studying the effects of anodal tDCS on sports performance in healthy athletes. Use a random-effects model to calculate the standardized mean difference (SMD), assess heterogeneity, and evaluate influencing factors. Additionally, conduct three subgroup analyses: (1) based on stimulated brain areas (M1, PFC, TC, CB); (2) based on different sports performance domains (endurance, strength, precision skill tasks, competitivecollaborative skills) for cluster analysis; (3) tDCS protocol parameters (current intensity and stimulation duration).Results: This study included 31 articles, covering 473 athletes. The meta-analysis results showed that the acute effect of a-tDCS significantly improved athletes' specific sports performance, with a moderate effect size (SMD = 0.39, 95% CI = 0.23-0.54, p < 0.001).Subgroup analysis revealed that M1 stimulation had the most consistent effect (SMD = 0.32, 95% CI = 0.15-0.48, p < 0.001), followed by PFC stimulation (SMD = 0.39, 95% CI = 0.03-0.76, p = 0.03). a-tDCS significantly enhanced athletes' endurance performance (SMD = 0.46, 95% CI = 0.20-0.72, p < 0.001) and competitive-collaborative skill tasks (SMD = 0.45, 95% CI = 0.10-0.80, p = 0.01). Analysis of stimulation parameters indicated that a moderate current intensity of 1.6-2.0 mA (SMD = 0.38, p < 0.001) and a stimulation duration of 16-20 minutes (SMD = 0.45, p < 0.001) were the optimal protocols for enhancing sports performance.The acute effects of a-tDCS significantly enhance athletes' endurance and competitive-collaborative skill performance, particularly when targeting the M1 and PFC regions. The optimal stimulation protocol involves a moderate current intensity (1.6-2.0 mA) and duration (16-20 minutes). Future research should further optimize stimulation parameters and explore long-term effects to enhance the application of a-
Keywords: transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), Athletic Performance, Endurance, Motor Cortex, Meta-analysis
Received: 20 May 2025; Accepted: 28 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Jiang, Liu and Gao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Xu Gao, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, 130024, Jilin Province, China
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