Denson Thomas F, Choy Olivia, Summerell Elizabeth, Wong Iana
School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
School of Social Science, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
Aggress Behav. 2025 Jul;51(4):e70036. doi: 10.1002/ab.70036.
Anger and aggression are causes of significant suffering. Psychological methods to prevent and reduce anger and aggression have been partially successful; however, there is room for novel interventions, such as those informed by neuroscience. One such intervention is anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), which involves administering a weak electrical current to the brain to stimulate cortical activity. In this meta-analysis, we synthesized 93 effect sizes from 25 sham-controlled experiments. We predicted that tDCS would reduce anger and aggression. The overall results showed no effect of tDCS on anger and aggression (Hedges' g = -0.03, CI = -0.30, 0.24). Separate meta-analyses of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex showed no effects of tDCS. The meta-analysis was limited by low power in the source articles (average power = 0.33); No study reached the sufficient sample size to detect a medium effect. Thus, there is room for more well-powered research on the topic to determine whether tDCS may reduce aggression.
愤怒和攻击行为是造成巨大痛苦的原因。预防和减少愤怒与攻击行为的心理方法取得了一定成效；然而，仍有空间采用新的干预措施，比如那些基于神经科学的方法。阳极经颅直流电刺激（tDCS）就是这样一种干预措施，它通过向大脑施加微弱电流来刺激皮层活动。在这项荟萃分析中，我们综合了25项假对照实验中的93个效应量。我们预测tDCS会减少愤怒和攻击行为。总体结果显示，tDCS对愤怒和攻击行为没有影响（赫奇斯g值=-0.03，置信区间=-0.30，0.24）。对背外侧前额叶皮层、腹内侧前额叶皮层和腹外侧前额叶皮层的单独荟萃分析也显示tDCS没有效果。该荟萃分析受到原始文章统计功效较低（平均功效=0.33）的限制；没有研究达到足够的样本量来检测中等效应。因此，对于该主题还有空间开展更多统计功效充足的研究，以确定tDCS是否能减少攻击行为。
