Table 2.
Characteristics of studies included in the meta-analysis
| Study | Exp | Study design | Sample size | Age (M, SD) | Gender (M/F) | Cognitive tasks | Cognitive domains | Outcome measures | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | C | ||||||||
| Allen et al. (2014) | 1 | Cross-over | 16 | 16 | 27.4 (3.6) | 11/5 | Conscious detection task | Pe | AC, RT |
| Amiaz et al. (2011) | Parallel | 10 | 10 |
A: 23.7 (3.1) C: 24.5 (3.6) |
9/11 | Filling-in task | Pe | AC | |
| Baeken et al. (2012) | Cross-over | 18 | 18 |
LDLPFC: 21.2 (1.4) RDLPFC: 24.5 (2.9) |
0/18 | Fitts’ paradigm | Mo | RT | |
| Bagherzadeh et al. (2016) | Parallel | 15 | 15 | A: 39.1 (4.1) | 10/20 |
CANTAB: DSP, S2B, PRM, SRM, SSP, SOC |
EF, Me | AC, RT | |
| C: 34.5 (3.4) | |||||||||
| Banissy et al. (2010) | 1 | Cross-over | 10 | 10 | 20–30 | 4/6 | Emotion discrimination task | Pe | AC, RT |
| 2 | Cross-over | 10 | 10 | 20–35 | 5/5 | Identity discrimination task | Pe | AC, RT | |
| 3 | Cross-over | 6 | 6 | 21–36 | 4/2 | Nonverbal auditory emotion recognition | Pe | AC | |
| Barr et al. (2009) | Parallel | 11 | 11 | 34.2 (7.2) | 11/11 | 0-back, 1-back, 2-back, 3-back | At, EF | AC, RT | |
| Chakraborty et al. (2021) | Cross-over | 15 | 15 | 27 (3.0) | 8/7 | Multiple object tracking | At | AC | |
| Chechlacz et al. (2015) | Cross-over | 30 | 30 | 26.2 (4.9) | 13/17 | Free visual exploration task | At | RT | |
| Cheng et al. (2013) | Cross-over | 11 | 11 |
A: 24 (5.4) C: 22.6 (5.2) |
7/13 | Order and quantity tasks | Pe | RT | |
| Choi et al. (2016) | Parallel | 12 | 8 | 26.5 (4.6) | 8/12 | Sensory discrimination measurement | Mo | AC, RT | |
| Chung et al. (2018) | Cross-over | 18 | 18 | 25.6 (7.0) | 8/10 | 2-back task, 3-back task | EF | AC | |
| Clerget et al. (2011) | Parallel | 12 | 12 | 25.1 (3.5) | 18/6 | Motor sequency experiment | Mo | AC, RT | |
| De Raedt et al. (2010) | Cross-over | 16 | 16 | - | 0/19 | Exogenous cueing task (ECT) | At | RT | |
| Parallel | 19 | 17 | - | 0/32 | ECT | At | RT | ||
| Deng et al. (2022) | Cross-over | 22 | 22 | 21 (2.4) | 12/18 | Change detection task | EF | AC | |
| Dietrich et al. (2018) | Parallel | 18 | 18 |
A: 30.4 (9.0) C: 29.2 (11.2) |
36/0 | Sentence repetition task | La | AC | |
| Galea et al. (2010) | Parallel | LDLPFC: 10, | 10 | LDLPFC: 23.1 (3.7), | 15/15 | Serial reaction time task | Me | AC, RT | |
| RDLPFC: 10 |
RDLPFC: 23.3 (3.1) C: 24.5 (4.3) |
||||||||
| Gao et al. (2021) | 2 | Cross-over | 16 | 16 | 21.13 (1.9) | 9/7 | Stroop, Associative memory test | At, EF, Me | AC, RT |
| Gaudeau-Bosma et al. (2013) | Parallel | 9 | 10 | 31.6 (10.6) | 11/8 | 0-back, 1-back, 2-back, 3-back | At, EF | AC | |
| Huang et al. (2004) | Cross-over | 24 | 24 | 27.0 (4.7) | 12/12 | Go/NoGo task | EF | RT | |
| Ji et al. (2019) | 1 | Cross-over | 5 Hz: 20 | 20 | 9/11 | EF | RT | ||
|
25 Hz: 20 iTBS: 20 |
Stop signal task (SST) |
||||||||
| 21.6 (1.0) | |||||||||
| 2 | Cross-over | 18 | 18 | 22.1 (2.5) | 13/5 | SST | EF | RT | |
| Kaderali et al. (2015) | 2 | Cross-over | 8 | 8 | - | - | Achromatic and chromatic motion discrimination task | Pe | AC |
| 3 | Cross-over | 8 | 8 | - | - | Chromatic and achromatic detection task | Pe | AC | |
| Kalla et al. (2009) | Cross-over | 12 | 12 | 28.3 | 8/4 | Visual search task | Pe | AC | |
| Kazemi et al. (2020) | Cross-over |
6 Hz: 10 8 Hz: 8 |
20 | 32.47 (11.0) | 13/7 | Rapid visual information processing task | At | AC, RT | |
| Kim et al. (2012) | Parallel | 8 | 8 | 63.13 (4.9) | - | Stroop task | At, EF | AC, RT | |
| Kim et al. (2020) | Parallel | 14 | 13 | 27.26 (2.4) | 16/11 | Auditory continuous performance test (CPT), visual CPT | At | RT | |
| Leyman et al. (2009) | 1 | Cross-over | 17 | 17 | 21.1 (1.5) | 0/17 | Negative Affective Priming (NAP) task | EF | RT |
| 2 | Cross-over | 22 | 22 | 24 (2.3) | 0/22 | NAP | EF | RT | |
| Li et al. (2017) | Parallel | 25 | 25 | 26.8 (1.4) | 24/26 | Stroop task | At, EF | AC, RT | |
| Li et al. (2021) | Parallel | 33 | 33 |
A: 25.8 (2.4) C: 25.6 (2.4) |
36/30 | 0-back, 1-back, 2-back, Stroop | EF | AC, RT | |
| Liang et al. (2021) | Parallel |
LpSTS: 38, LDLPFC: 35 |
36 | 21.4 (2.5) | 50/59 | Self-matching task | At, EF | AC, RT | |
| Meehan et al. (2013) | 1 | Parallel | 11 | 11 |
A: 24.0 (2.9) C: 23.0 (2.3) |
A: 6/5 C: 8/3 |
Continuous tracking task | Mo | AC, RT |
| Morgan et al. (2013) | Cross-over | 17 | 17 | 25.0 | - | Orientation task, Colour task, Dual task | EF | AC, RT | |
| Palaus et al. (2020) | Parallel | 14 | 13 | 29.4 (6.3) | 13/14 | Reaction time tasks, Raven’s progressive matrices, 3-back, Mental rotation task, Digit span tasks, Stop-switching task | At, EF, Pe | AC, RT | |
| Pearce et al. (2014) | Parallel | 10 | 10 | 27.4 (7.4) | 10/10 | Spatial working memory | EF | AC, RT | |
| Pinto et al. (2018) | Parallel | iTBS:10, cTBS:10, iTBS:10, cTBS:10 | 10 | 22.8 (2.0) | 20/31 | Oddball paradigm | At | RT | |
| Pinto et al. (2021) | Parallel | iTBS: 9, cTBS: 9 | 10 | 22.6 (2.3) | 16/12 | Oddball task, Trial making test, Stroop | At, EF | AC | |
| Rahnev et al. (2013) | 2 | Cross-over | 9 | 9 | 19–26 | 3/6 | Perceptual discrimination task | Pe | AC |
| Schaller et al. (2013) | Parallel | 21 | 17 |
A: 24.4 (2.7) C: 24.1 (2.9) |
38/0 | VFT, RFFT TAP: alertness, go/no-go, divided attention, working memory, flexibility | At, EF | AC, RT | |
| Tambini et al. (2017) | Cross-over | 22 | 22 | 20.7 | 5/17 | Memory test | Me | AC | |
| Tomlinson et al. (2014) | 1 | Cross-over | 10 | 10 | 19–35 | 3/7 |
Aiming task Memory task |
Me | AC |
| 2 | Cross-over | 13 | 13 | 18–29 | 4/9 | Memory task | Me | RT | |
| 2 | Cross-over | 9 | 9 | 22–43 | 4/5 | SVFP | EF | RT | |
| Vanbellingen et al. (2020) | Cross-over | 31 | 31 | 33.4 (14.4) | 23/23 | TULIA, Postural imitation test | Mo | AC | |
| Vanderhasselt et al. (2006) | Cross-over | 28 | 28 | 23 (4.4) | 0/28 | Stroop task | At, EF | RT | |
| Vanderhasselt et al. (2007) | Cross-over | 20 | 20 | 24 (2.6) | 0/20 | Stroop task | At, EF | RT | |
| Vanderhasselt et al. (2010) | Cross-over | 20 | 20 | 27.7 (2.7) | 0/20 | Reaction task | At | RT | |
| Varnava et al. (2013) | Cross-over | 24 | 24 | 23.7 (3.7) | 12/12 | Line bisection task, Landmark task | Pe | RT | |
| Vékony et al. (2018) | Parallel |
cTBS: 17 iTBS: 18 |
16 |
cTBS: 24.2 (2.8) iTBS: 25.3 (2.7) C: 21.3 (2.3) |
cTBS: 11/6 iTBS: 10/8 C: 4/12 |
1-back, 2-back, 3-back | EF | AC | |
| Vidal-Pineiro et al. (2014) | Parallel | 12 | 12 | 71.8 (6.8) | 12/12 | Episodic memory task | Me | AC | |
| Wang and Voss (2015) | Parallel | 8 | 8 | 20–32 | 7/9 | Face-cued word recall testing | Me | AC | |
| Wang et al. (2020) | Parallel |
20 Hz: 29 iTBS: 20 |
29 |
A: 24 (2.6) C: 22.4 (2.2) |
A: 29/29 C: 16/13 |
Game of dice task, Risky gains task | EF | AC | |
| Wu et al. (2021) | Parallel |
20 Hz: 20 iTBS: 20 |
20 |
20 Hz: 23.8 (3.4), iTBS: 23.9 (2.8), C: 23.5 (3.0) |
34/26 |
0-back, 1-back, 2-back 3-back, Wisconsin card sorting test |
At, EF | AC, RT | |
| Yang et al. (2018a) | Cross-over | 23 | 23 | 23.6 (3.0) | 23/0 | Adjusting amount task, Information sampling task (IST) SST, IST | EF | AC | |
| Yang et al. (2018b) | Cross-over | 20 | 20 | 21.8 (1.9) | 20/0 | Nine-hole peg test, | EF | AC, RT | |
| Zhang & Fong (2019) | Parallel | 6 | 6 |
A: 25.3 (2.0), C: 26.3 (2.3) |
A: 3/3, C: 4/2 |
Minnesota dexterity, Purdue pegboard test, Two-ball rotation task |
Mo | AC | |
| Zito et al. (2021) | Cross-over | 20 | 20 | 27.2 (3.3) | 10/10 | Agency task | EF | AC | |
A Active condition; C Control condition; LDLPFC Left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; RDLPFC Right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; cTBS continuous theta-burst stimulation; iTBS Intermittent theta-burst stimulation; CANTAB Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery; DSP Digit Span Task; S2B Spatial 2-back task; PRM Pattern Recognition Memory Task; SRM Spatial Recognition Memory Task; SSP Spatial Span Task; SOC Stockings of Cambridge task; ECT Exogenous cueing task; SST Stop Signal Task; CPT Continuous performance test; NAP Negative Affective Priming; VFT Verbal fluency tasks; RFFT Ruff Figural Fluency Test; SVFP Standard variable foreperiod paradigm; TAP Test for attentional performance; TULIA a validated, comprehensive test for gesture production; IST Information Sampling Task; At Attention; Pe Perception; Mo Motor; Me Memory; La Language; EF Executive function; AC accuracy; RT Reaction time