Neural Noise- A randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled, crossover study tested tRNS for reducing attention bias toward negative emotional stimuli.1
- The transcranial stimulation method is on-topic for neuromodulation; the application is clinical/affective.1
- The study was published in Nature with tier-2 relevance to BCI/neural-dynamics focus.1 1
Weekly enrichment (2026-07-20)
- The study was published in Nature Scientific Reports and compared tRNS against tDCS and sham for reducing attention bias toward negative emotional stimuli.23
- It enrolled 32 healthy, right-handed young men (18-30 years) with moderate or high anxiety, recruited over 15 months (October 2023 to December 2024); the final analyzed sample was 29 (mean age 20.7 ± 1.7 years; STAI trait anxiety 51.28 ± 6.63), with 10 (34.5%) moderate and 19 (65.5%) high anxiety.2
- The target sample size (n = 32) was derived via G*Power 3.1 from a prior tRNS attentional-network study (partial eta-squared 0.139), giving n = 27 for 0.95 power at alpha = 0.05, plus a 20% dropout adjustment.2
- Each participant received all three conditions (tRNS, tDCS, sham) in random order, separated by a 7-day washout, with attention bias measured via an emotional face-color Stroop task (disgusted faces as negative stimuli, neutral as baseline, angry as excluded controls).2
- Stimulation used a NeuroConn DC-STIMULATOR PLUS with 5 x 7 cm saline-soaked electrodes (anode over left DLPFC/F3, cathode over right supraorbital/Fp2), 2 mA for 20 min, current density 0.057 mA/cm-squared, impedance kept below 5 kΩ.2
- tRNS used high-frequency noise (100-640 Hz), with the 2 mA denoting peak-to-peak amplitude (fluctuating around 0 mA with ±1 mA maximum excursion).2
- A one-way repeated-measures ANOVA showed a significant condition effect (F(2,56) = 3.63, p = 0.033, partial eta-squared = 0.115); post-hoc, tRNS significantly reduced attention bias versus sham (Bonferroni-corrected p = 0.047, Cohen’s d = 0.72).2
- Neither tDCS versus sham (corrected p = 0.276, d = 0.39) nor tDCS versus tRNS (corrected p = 1.00, d = 0.22) reached significance; tRNS also showed lower effect variability (standard deviation ratio 0.70 vs 1.10 for tDCS).2
- Correlations between stimulation-induced change and baseline bias did not exceed the permutation-based null distribution (tRNS r = 0.844, permuted p = 0.104), so the authors argue tRNS effects on attentional control may not strictly depend on baseline bias magnitude, suggesting applicability in both healthy and clinical populations.2