Inhibiting the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex selectively enhances unsupervised statistical learning
5 affiliations
- 1Centre de Recherche en Neurosciences de Lyon, INSERM, CNRS, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, CRNL U1028 UMR5292, 69500 Bron, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France. Electronic address: [email protected]
- 2Brain, Memory and Language Research Group, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, HUN-REN Research Centre for Natural Sciences, 1117 Budapest, Hungary; Doctoral School of Psychology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, 1075 Budapest, Hungary; Institute of Psychology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, 1075 Budapest, Hungary. Electronic address: [email protected]
- 3Gran Canaria Cognitive Research Center, Atlántico Medio University, 35017 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
- 4Institute of Psychology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, 1075 Budapest, Hungary; Centre for Thinking and Learning, Institute for Lifecourse Development, School of Human Sciences, Faculty of Education, Health and Human Sciences, University of Greenwich, London SE10 9LS, UK
- 5Flash Clinic, 1125 Budapest, Hungary; Department of Neurology, University of Szeged, 6725 Szeged, Hungary; Department of Voice, Speech and Swallowing, Semmelweis University, 1085 Budapest, Hungary
Abstract
The brain must balance the automatic extraction of environmental regularities with top-down cognitive control, yet the causal neural mechanisms governing this interplay are debated. In particular, the hemispheric contributions of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) remain unresolved. Here, we applied inhibitory repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to the left, right, or bilateral DLPFC in 95 healthy adults during a probabilistic sequence learning task. We found that inhibiting the right and bilateral DLPFC significantly enhanced statistical learning compared to sham stimulation, while the left DLPFC stimulation group remained similar to sham. Contrary to the hypothesis that this competition is mediated by the suppression of existing knowledge, episodic memory performance was unaffected across all stimulation groups. These findings challenge a direct episodic gating mechanism and suggest the DLPFC’s influence on statistical learning is hemisphere-dependent. As an alternative, we propose that right DLPFC inhibition shifts cognitive processing toward a more exploratory information-sampling strategy, a view supported by our finding of significantly greater reaction time variability in the right and bilateral stimulation groups. Together, our results provide causal evidence for a right-lateralized suppressive influence of the DLPFC on unsupervised learning and suggest its modulatory role is linked to information processing style rather than direct competition with episodic memory systems.
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BibTeX
@article{pesthy2026inhibiting,
title = {{Inhibiting the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex selectively enhances unsupervised statistical learning}},
author = {Orsolya Pesthy and Zsuzsanna Viktória Pesthy and Teodóra Vékony and Karolina Janacsek and Dániel Fabó and Dezső Németh},
journal = {Cell Reports},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1016/j.celrep.2026.118123},
url = {https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S2211124726012027},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Inhibiting the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex selectively enhances unsupervised statistical learning
AU - Orsolya Pesthy
AU - Zsuzsanna Viktória Pesthy
AU - Teodóra Vékony
AU - Karolina Janacsek
AU - Dániel Fabó
AU - Dezső Németh
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/01
JO - Cell Reports
DO - 10.1016/j.celrep.2026.118123
UR - https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S2211124726012027
AB - The brain must balance the automatic extraction of environmental regularities with top-down cognitive control, yet the causal neural mechanisms governing this interplay are debated. In particular, the hemispheric contributions of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) remain unresolved. Here, we applied inhibitory repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to the left, right, or bilateral DLPFC in 95 healthy adults during a probabilistic sequence learning task. We found that inhibiting the right and bilateral DLPFC significantly enhanced statistical learning compared to sham stimulation, while the left DLPFC stimulation group remained similar to sham. Contrary to the hypothesis that this competition is mediated by the suppression of existing knowledge, episodic memory performance was unaffected across all stimulation groups. These findings challenge a direct episodic gating mechanism and suggest the DLPFC’s influence on statistical learning is hemisphere-dependent. As an alternative, we propose that right DLPFC inhibition shifts cognitive processing toward a more exploratory information-sampling strategy, a view supported by our finding of significantly greater reaction time variability in the right and bilateral stimulation groups. Together, our results provide causal evidence for a right-lateralized suppressive influence of the DLPFC on unsupervised learning and suggest its modulatory role is linked to information processing style rather than direct competition with episodic memory systems.
SN - 2211-1247
SN - 2639-1856
ER -