Posted by Hugh on March 13, 2019, at 11:54:31
Researchers from the University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Medicine in Chapel Hill have recently conducted a double-blind pilot clinical study testing a type of electrical brain stimulation therapy called "transcranial alternating current stimulation" (tACS) in people with major depression.
In people with major depressive disorder, alpha oscillations are more asymmetrical, meaning that they are much more active in one part of the brain -- the left frontal cortex -- than in the other.
In the new study, the findings of which now appear in the journal Translational Psychiatry, the researchers tested the effect of tACS on these oscillations with the ultimate aim of verifying whether the novel approach could improve symptoms of major depression.
Every participant received their assigned therapy during a 40-minute session on each of 5 consecutive days. The researchers assessed the participants on the MADRS scale immediately after the 5-day intervention and at 2 and 4 weeks after the trial to gauge the therapy's effects.
Frohlich and team found that the people in the main experimental group, who had received 10-Hertz tACS stimulation, did indeed have an equalizing decrease in the brain wave oscillations in the left frontal cortex.
At the 4-week mark, there was no statistically significant improvement in depression symptoms in this group compared with the other two groups.
However, the data that the team collected 2 weeks after the end of the clinical study told a completely different story. At this follow-up point, 77.8 percent of the participants in the experimental group saw a reduction in depression symptoms of at least 50 percent compared with their situation at baseline.
Complete article:
poster:Hugh
thread:1103586
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20190206/msgs/1103586.html