Neural Noise

tDCS combined with physical exercise for smoking cessation

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  • Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) combined with physical exercise was tested for smoking cessation in a randomized controlled trial.1
  • The intervention is relevant to neuromodulation and transcranial stimulation in behavioral outcomes.1
  • The study provides tDCS RCT design evidence for a behavioral (non–neural-dynamics) outcome.1 1

Weekly enrichment (2026-07-20)

  • The trial was published in Scientific Reports (2025), conducted at the Federal University of Alagoas (Brazil) and registered in the Brazilian Registry of Clinical Trials (ReBEC, RBR-4dh99pj).2 3
  • 41 chronic smokers (39% women, 61% men) were randomized into four groups: tDCS alone (G1, n=10), aerobic exercise alone (G2, n=9), tDCS combined with aerobic exercise (G3, n=12), and sham tDCS combined with aerobic exercise (G4, n=10).2 4
  • The protocol ran over 5 consecutive daily sessions; active tDCS delivered 2 mA for 20 minutes with the anode at F4 (right prefrontal cortex) and cathode at T3 (temporal region), followed by 40 minutes of moderate-intensity treadmill walking (40-59% of heart rate).3 4
  • Only the combined group (G3) showed a statistically significant craving reduction of 50.4% at end of treatment (T=5.00, df=11, p=0.0004, η²=0.69).4 3
  • G3 also significantly reduced cigarette consumption and brain reactivity to smoking cues, and increased motivation to change smoking behaviour (MCSB, ~15% improvement).2 4
  • EEG analysis found a significant decrease in gamma rhythm power during cigarette-cue exposure in G3, whereas G1 and G4 showed increased gamma power that did not translate into reduced craving.2 3
  • No statistically significant between-group difference was found for the magnitude of cigarette-consumption reduction, and the authors caution that these are short-term findings needing larger, longer follow-up studies.4
  • The result is consistent with prior addiction work: augmenting varenicline with left-DLPFC tDCS raised 7-day abstinence to 9/12 (active) versus 6/16 (sham) at end of treatment (p=0.04) in a separate 41-participant pilot.5
  • A separate double-blind RCT (n=36) pairing left-DLPFC tDCS with a brief intervention lowered craving by session 5 but found no significant abstinence difference at 3-month follow-up.6

Footnotes

  1. https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiX0FVX3lxTE5qYk4yam9VNEY3dFpOeUpidTRkazV2S0ZWUktYaDhLeGdjYUdZaGdiM1NKd1U1THlfcGNGaUtyazZxN19lSUVWNWlac2dsU1cxYkszNnEtcWpER21KTzdz?oc=5 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  2. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-85877-4 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  3. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-85877-4 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  4. https://www.news-medical.net/news/20250316/Want-to-quit-smoking-New-study-shows-brain-stimulation-and-exercise-can-help.aspx ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brs.2023.07.001 ↩

  6. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11127809/ ↩

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