Home-Based Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation for the Treatment of Symptoms of Depression and Anxiety in Temporal Lobe Epilepsy: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Sham-Controlled Clinical Trial

Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience

Rosane Brondani²  José Augusto Bragatti²  Carolina Machado Torres²  Wolnei Caumo³  Paulo Roberto Stefani Sanches⁴  Thais Leite Secchi⁵  Patrícia Gabriela Riedel⁶  Luiza Amaral de Castro⁶  Marino Muxfeldt Bianchin⁶  Suelen Mandelli Mota⁶ 

[1] Neuromodulação, Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, Porto Alegre, Brazil;Centro para Tratamento de Epilepsia Refratária (CETER), Basic Research and Advanced Investigations in Neuroscience (BRAIN), Serviço de Neurologia do Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, Porto Alegre, Brazil;;Laboratório de Dor &Laboratório de Engenharia Biomédica, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil;Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Médicas, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil;Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil;

关键词: tDCS – transcranial direct current stimulation;    epilepsy;    depression;    anxiety;    neuromodulation;    non-pharmacological interventions;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fnint.2021.753995

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

We conducted a double-blind randomized clinical trial in order to examine the effects and the safety of home-based transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on depressive and anxious symptoms of patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). We evaluated 26 adults with TLE and depressive symptoms randomized into two different groups: active tDCS (tDCSa) and Sham (tDCSs). The patients were first submitted to 20 sessions of tDCS for 20 min daily, 5 days a week for 4 weeks and then received a maintenance tDCS application in the research laboratory once a week for 3 weeks. The intensity of the current was 2 mA, applied bilaterally over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, with the anode positioned on the left side and the cathode on the right side. Participants were evaluated on days 1, 15, 30, and 60 of the study using the Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI). A follow-up evaluation was performed 1 year after the end of treatment. They were also evaluated for quality of life and for anxious symptoms as secondary outcomes. The groups did not differ in clinical, socioeconomic or psychometric characteristics at the initial assessment. There was no statistically significant difference between groups regarding reported adverse effects, seizure frequency or dropouts. On average, between the 1st and 60th day, the BDI score decreased by 43.93% in the active group and by 44.67% in the Sham group (ΔBDIfinal – initial = −12.54 vs. −12.20, p = 0.68). The similar improvement in depressive symptoms observed in both groups was attributed to placebo effect and interaction between participants and research group and not to tDCS intervention per se. In our study, tDCS was safe and well tolerated, but it was not effective in reducing depressive or anxiety symptoms in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy.Clinical Trial Registration: [ClinicalTrials.gov], identifier [NCT03871842].

【 授权许可】

Unknown