Treatment with transcranial alternating current stimulation, a noninvasive method that alters brain activity using electric currents, led to improved cognitive function in areas including working and long-term memory, attention, and executive control, according to a of 102 studies that enrolled a total of 2893 participants. The findings applied to healthy people as well as older adults and people with neuropsychiatric disorders such as depression, Parkinson disease, and mild cognitive impairment.

The beneficial effects of transcranial alternating current stimulation tended to be more pronounced after treatment than during. Moreover, cognitive improvements were larger when researchers used current flow models to more precisely target the intervention to participants’ brains, the researchers reported in Science Translational Medicine.