Brain stimulation at home: effective support in the treatment of depression
Brain stimulation at home: effective support in the treatment of depression
A remote study with more than 150 participants has shown that experimental treatment of depression - which uses a device -like swimming cap to stimulate the brain gently - can be effective if it is carried out at home.
The non-invasive therapy, known as transcranial DC stimulation (TDCS), aims to stimulate areas of the brain that are connected to the mood regulation. It delivers a pain -free, weak electrical current through electrodes that are placed on the scalp. This method could be a turning point for more than a third of people with depression who do not respond to conventional treatments such as antidepressants or psychotherapy.
The study published on October 21 in Nature Medicine found that the participants who received TDCs had a stronger reduction in depressive symptoms after ten weeks of regular treatment than the control group. Earlier research has already examined the use of TDCs for the treatment of depression, but this study stands out due to its long period of time and the long -distance design, which did not require daily visits to a specialized clinic.
"If we think of the barriers in the field of mental health, access is a crucial one," says Shawn McClintock, clinical neuropsychologist at the UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, which was not involved in the study. The study "Really begins to underpin the opportunity to bring psychological treatments into a home environment", he adds.
stimulation of the brain cells
In the study, the researchers aimed at the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a brain area that is involved in decision -making processes and is often less active in people with depression. "The TDCs contains a small stream that makes it easier for the brain cells," explains the co -author of the study, Cynthia Fu, clinical neuroscientist at King’s College London.
FU and their colleagues train 120 women and 54 men, all of whom were diagnosed with severe depression, in the application of the TDCS headset and randomly divided the participants into a treatment or control group.
The participants in the treatment group received a stream of 2 milliampers onto the scalp-about 0.5 % of the electricity that a 100-watt light bulb pulls-for 30 minutes, 5 times a week in the first 3 weeks, then 3 times a week for 7 weeks. The participants of the control group wore a sham headset that only gave a short stream pulse at the beginning of each session to imitate the feeling of real TDCs without offering the same stimulation.
After 10 weeks, the value of the treatment group on a scale for measuring the depressive symptoms fell by 9.41 points, while the value of the control group decreased by 7.14 points. Almost 45 % of the participants with the active TDCS device reported an improvement or recreation from their symptoms, compared to almost 22 % of those with the apparent device. The headsets were used in addition to other treatments - many of the study participants took antidepressants and had given themselves in psychotherapy at least six weeks before the study.
mixed results
Although these results are encouraging, previous research has shown that TDCs do not work for everyone. Last year, a study with 150 people found that TDCs had no antidepressant effects. But studies with positive and negative results are equally important in order to examine the potential of the method as treatment for depression, says Frank Padberg, psychiatrist at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, Germany. The next step should be to understand why TDCs works for some people, but not for others, and to look for ways to personalize treatment, he adds. "Different people need different doses."
Future studies could also use imaging processes and electrical records to observe changes in the neuronal circuits during TDCS treatment, says McClintock. This would help the researchers "see what this treatment actually causes at the level of the neuronal circuits".
"Three decades ago, I would not have thought that this stimulation could do something in the brain," says Padberg. But now it is known that TDCs influences brain activity, "I am pretty sure that an optimized method will one day find its way into clinical care," he says.
- Woodham, R. D. et al. Nature med. https://doi.org/s41591-03305-Y (2024).
- Burkhardt, G. et al. Lancet 402, 545–554 (2023). https://doi.org/s0140-6736 (23) 00640-2