Brain stimulation increases fast brain waves in older adults
In a randomized crossover trial of 30 older adults, 20 minutes of frontal brain stimulation increased fast brain waves, which correlated with improved standing balance.
Sham-controlled
Limit: Unmonitored activities outside the protocol could confound baseline brain activity and stimulation response
Edited by Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News
Thirty adults aged 65 and older who walked without assistive devices completed a randomized, sham-controlled crossover trial. Participants completed three visits in random order. At each visit, they received 20 minutes of transcranial direct current stimulation—mild electrical current applied to the scalp—targeting the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the sensorimotor cortex, or an inactive sham. Before and immediately after stimulation, researchers recorded brain waves and measured postural sway during quiet standing and while counting backward.
Compared to both controls, frontal stimulation increased gamma power—fast brain waves of 30 to 50 hertz—in anterior left and right brain regions during quiet standing. A similar trend appeared while standing and counting. Participants with greater increases in gamma power showed greater reductions in sway across both standing tasks. The authors suggest that stimulating this frontal area modulates gamma waves during standing, which correlates with improved balance.
Why it matters
Maintaining balance often requires mental attention, which becomes harder to coordinate in older age and increases fall risk. The findings shed light on how frontal brain networks support postural control in older people and suggest a neural pathway that noninvasive stimulation might engage to aid stability.
Caveats
The trial measured outcomes only immediately after a single 20-minute session, so it cannot show whether changes in brain waves or sway persist over time. The study included only 30 participants and excluded individuals with cognitive impairment, neurological conditions, or mobility limitations requiring walking aids.
From the paper
- Participants
Thirty older adults were recruited from the community and tested at Hebrew SeniorLife’s Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research (Boston, MA, U.S).
- Ages
Participants were included in the study if they were persons aged 65 and older, able to read, write and communicate in English, and able to stand and walk without use of an assistive device.
- Duration
Stimulation sessions were 20 minutes in duration, plus a 59-second ramp-up and ramp-down to maximize participant comfort.
- Gamma power
Two-way repeated measures ANOVA models indicated significant interactions between stimulation condition and time for gamma power during single-task standing condition in the anterior left region (p= 0.02) and anterior right region (p= 0.03).
Results, The effect of tDCS on Gamma Power During Single- and Dual-task Standing
- Postural sway
At the L-DLPFC stimulation visit, participants who demonstrated a greater increase of gamma power in the frontal region (average of anterior left and anterior right) during single-task standing demonstrated less change in postural sway area from pre-to-post tDCS (r=−0.53, p=0.007).
Results, Correlation Between Change of Gamma Power and Change of Postural Sway Area
Quoted word for word from the full text on PubMed Central.
The paper
High Point University; Harvard University
The Journals of Gerontology, Series A, May 19, 2026, Open access, accepted manuscript
