Lega Carlotta, Cattaneo Luigi, Costantini Giulio
Department of Psychology and Milan Center for Neuroscience (NeuroMI), University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy.
Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), University of Trento, Trento, Italy.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2022 Jun 24;16:920558. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.920558. eCollection 2022.
Behavioral effects of non-invasive brain stimulation techniques (NIBS) can dramatically change as a function of different factors (e.g., stimulation intensity, timing of stimulation). In this framework, lately there has been a growing interest toward the importance of considering the inter-individual differences in baseline performance and how they are related with behavioral NIBS effects. However, assessing how baseline performance level is associated with behavioral effects of brain stimulation techniques raises up crucial methodological issues. How can we test whether the performance at baseline is predictive of the effects of NIBS, when NIBS effects themselves are estimated with reference to baseline performance? In this perspective article, we discuss the limitations connected to widely used strategies for the analysis of the association between baseline value and NIBS effects, and review solutions to properly address this type of question.
非侵入性脑刺激技术（NIBS）的行为效应会因不同因素（如刺激强度、刺激时间）而发生显著变化。在此框架下，近来人们越来越关注个体基线表现差异的重要性以及这些差异与NIBS行为效应之间的关系。然而，评估基线表现水平与脑刺激技术行为效应之间的关联引发了关键的方法学问题。当NIBS效应本身是参照基线表现来估计时，我们如何测试基线表现是否能预测NIBS效应？在这篇观点文章中，我们讨论了与广泛用于分析基线值与NIBS效应之间关联的策略相关的局限性，并回顾了妥善解决这类问题的方法。
