A new review, which appears in The BMJ journal, examines the
benefits of non-invasive brain stimulation for treating major depression and
finds that the technique is a valid alternative to existing treatments.
Doctors should consider brain
stimulation as an alternative treatment for people living with severe
depression, finds a new review.
Over 17 million adults in the United States have had an
episode of major depression at one
point in their lives.
Some
of these people have treatment-resistant depression, which means common
prescription drugs do not alleviate the symptoms.
Recent
studies have pointed to alternative treatment methods for major depression,
such as non-invasive brain stimulation techniques.
For
instance, a study that
appeared at the end of last year showed that using small electric currents to
stimulate a brain area called the orbitofrontal cortex significantly improves
the mood of people who did not benefit from conventional antidepressants.
An
even more recent trial of
a form of brain stimulation called "transcranial alternating current stimulation"
(tACS) found that the technique halved depression symptoms in almost 80 percent
of the study participants.
Despite
such promising results, doctors do not use these techniques widely, as there is
not enough data available on their efficacy.
So,
a team of researchers led by Julian Mutz at the Institute of Psychiatry,
Psychology & Neuroscience at King's College London, United Kingdom, set out
to review some
clinical trials that have examined the benefits of non-invasive brain
stimulation techniques for people living with depression.
Brain stimulation as additional treatment
Specifically,
Mutz and team examined the results of 113 clinical trials. Overall, these
trials included 6,750 participants who were 48 years old, on average, and were
living with major depressive disorder or bipolar depression.
The
original clinical trials involved randomly assigning these participants to 18
treatment interventions or "sham" therapies. The reviewers focussed
on the response, or "efficacy" of the treatment, as well as the
"discontinuation of treatment for any reason" — or
"acceptability" of the therapies. Mutz and colleagues also rated the
trials' risk of bias.
The
therapies included in the review were "electroconvulsive therapy (ECT),
transcranial magnetic stimulation (repetitive (rTMS), accelerated, priming,
deep, and synchronized), theta burst stimulation, magnetic seizure therapy,
transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), or sham therapy."
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