“The burden of depression is mostly keenly felt by the 280 million people worldwide currently managing symptoms. While a combination of antidepressants and therapy generally proves to be effective for many people, medication can have side-effects that some can find disruptive. Our study has demonstrated that tDCS is a potential first line option that could help those in need.”
Professor Cynthia Fu, the study’s senior author and a Professor of Affective Neuroscience and Psychotherapy at King’s IoPPN
21 October 2024
At home brain stimulation for depression found to be safe and effective
A device that delivers direct stimulation to the brain is a safe and effective means of treating depression at home.
New research from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London, in partnership with the University of East London, and The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth Houston), and funded by Flow Neuroscience, has found that a device that delivers direct stimulation to the brain is a safe and effective means of treating depression at home.
The research, published in Nature Medicine, suggests that devices like the one used could become a first line at home treatment for major depressive disorder.
Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a form of self-administered, non-invasive brain stimulation that applies a weak, direct current of between 0.5 to 2 milliampere to the scalp via two electrodes. It is not electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), which delivers about 800 milliamperes to the brain causing a generalised seizure and can only be conducted under strict supervision.
174 participants aged 18 and over, and with a diagnosis of at least moderate depression were randomly assigned to one of two treatment arms; “active” tDCS or “inactive” tDCS which was the same device but did not provide a current. Participants had a 10-week course of treatment, initially having five 30-minute sessions a week for the first three weeks, followed by three 30-minute sessions a week for the following seven weeks.
Researchers found that participants in the active arm of the trial showed significant improvements in the severity of their depression, as well as the overall clinical response and remission compared to those in the ‘inactive’ placebo control arm. The rates of treatment response and remission were three times higher in the active treatment arm compared to the placebo arm, where 44.9% in the active arm demonstrated a remission rate compared to 21.8% of the control group.
In 2022/23, 86 million antidepressants were prescribed to an estimated 8.6 million people in England.
Rachel Woodham, the study’s first author and a Research Assistant at University of East London said, “There is no such thing as the perfect medical intervention. Medication can have unintended side effects, while therapy is both time and resource intensive. Our hope is that tDCS can provide a viable treatment for people with moderate to severe depression to help them better manage their symptoms.
“The headset is designed in such a way that allows the user to keep doing their day to day tasks, remaining unencumbered while undergoing treatment.”
Flow Neuroscience Chief Clinical Officer and co-founder Daniel Månsson said: “Our core mission was, and still is, to create a treatment that is effective, safe and accessible to as many people as possible.”
Home-based transcranial direct current stimulation treatment for major depressive disorder: a fully remote, multisite, randomized sham-controlled trial (DOI 10.1101/2023.11.27.23299059) (Rachel D. Woodham, Sudhakar Selvaraj, Nahed Lajmi, Harriet Hobday, Gabrielle Sheehan, Ali-Reza Ghazi-Noori, Peter J. Lagerberg, Maheen Rizvi, Sarah S. Kwon, Paulette Orhii, David Maislin, Lucia Hernandez, Rodrigo Machado-Vieira, Jair C. Soares, Allan H. Young, Cynthia H.Y. Fu) was published in Nature Medicine.
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Head of School, Academic Psychiatry