Original ArticleTolerability of transcranial direct current stimulation in childhood-onset schizophrenia
Section snippets
Participants
Twelve children/adolescents with COS completed the inpatient study; the sample included five boys and seven girls, ages (10-17 years). Participants had no history of significant neurologic illness. The guardians of participants provided written informed consent and COS subjects provided written assent before entering the study. This study was approved by the National Institutes of Health Neuroscience Institutional Review Board (IRB).
Study design
Participants were eligible for one of two study options.
Results
Of the 15 patients initially enrolled, two withdrew before randomization. One subject was randomly assigned to active temporal treatment but withdrew after 1 week of treatment because of a family issue that required her to return home. The remaining participants (five males, seven females) completed the entire study. Table 1 shows subject demographic and central nervous system (CNS) medication data. No subject asked to stop the study, required a change in CNS medications, or needed medical
Discussion
This pilot study, based on analyses of 125 tDCS sessions, is the first to demonstrate that tDCS is easily tolerated in adolescents. The most frequent side effect during active treatment was tingling (n = 6, 46.1%) or itching (n = 7, 53.8%) at the electrode sites. Several patients complained of fatigue (n = 4, 30.7%). However, this could be related to medication regimens that frequently include the atypical antipsychotic clozapine. As noted previously, no subjects asked to stop the study because
References (37)
- et al.
Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation or transcranial direct current stimulation?
Brain Stimul
(2009) - et al.
Effects of transcranial direct current stimulation on working memory in patients with Parkinson’s disease
J Neurol Sci
(2006) - et al.
A sham-controlled, phase II trial of transcranial direct current stimulation for the treatment of central pain in traumatic spinal cord injury
Pain
(2006) - et al.
Treatment of depression with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS): a review
Exp Neurol
(2009) - et al.
Bilateral frontal transcranial direct current stimulation: failure to replicate classic findings in healthy subjects
Clin Neurophysiol
(2009) - et al.
Safety criteria for transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) in humans
Clin Neurophysiol
(2003) - et al.
Safety aspects of transcranial direct current stimulation concerning healthy subjects and patients
Brain Res Bull
(2007) - et al.
MRI study of human brain exposed to weak direct current stimulation of the frontal cortex
Clin Neurophysiol
(2004) - et al.
Safety limits of cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation in rats
Clin Neurophysiol
(2009) - et al.
Effect of spinal transcutaneous direct current stimulation on somatosensory evoked potentials in humans
Clin Neurophysiol
(2008)
Childhood-onset schizophrenia: progressive brain changes during adolescence
Biol Psychiatry
Childhood-onset schizophrenia: rare but worth studying
Biol Psychiatry
Transcranial DC stimulation (tDCS): a tool for double-blind sham-controlled clinical studies in brain stimulation
Clin Neurophysiol
Electrode-distance dependent after-effects of transcranial direct and random noise stimulation with extracephalic reference electrodes
Clin Neurophysiol
Noninvasive human brain stimulation
Annu Rev Biomed Eng
rTMS strategies for the study and treatment of schizophrenia: a review
Int J Neuropsychopharmacol
Polarization of the human motor cortex through the scalp
Neuroreport
Excitability changes induced in the human motor cortex by weak transcranial direct current stimulation
J Physiol
Cited by (105)
Safety and efficacy of cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation in patients with Lennox Gastaut Syndrome: An open-label, prospective, single-center, single-blinded, pilot study
2022, SeizureCitation Excerpt :Previous studies using cranial reference showed that increasing excitability under the (reference) anode, did not show any increase in seizure frequency in patients with epilepsy [6,24]. Although, tDCS dose in children needs a reduction in order to compensate for the thinner skull and lower resistance (Gillick et al., 2014; Moliadze et al., 2015), however, 2 mA tDCS has been used without complications in children [15,35]. Other limitations of our study include: a small sample size; a short-term follow-up (two months); and no assessment of lifestyle or cognitive effects potentially related to the application of c-tDCs.
Psychotic Disorders and Risk-States in Adolescence: Etiology, Developmental Considerations, and Treatment
2022, Comprehensive Clinical Psychology, Second EditionTranscranial direct current stimulation in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: A meta-analysis of clinical efficacy outcomes
2021, Progress in Brain ResearchCitation Excerpt :Despite these positive findings, a thorough screening for possible epileptic pathology is recommended even in a non-epileptic population (Splittgerber et al., 2020a). It has been commonly reported that tDCS does not cause serious adverse effects in young clinical populations, even if applied daily over a number of consecutive days (Mattai et al., 2011; Sotnikova et al., 2017). In studies in children with ADHD (Munz et al., 2015; Prehn-Kristensen et al., 2014), tDCS was applied during sleep.
tES to rehabilitate neurodevelopmental disorders: A study on clinical practitioners' attitudes
2021, Progress in Brain Research