Abstract
Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) is a unique form of non-invasive brain stimulation. Sinusoidal alternating electric currents are delivered to the scalp to affect mostly cortical neurons. tACS is supposed to modulate brain function and, in turn, cognitive processes by entraining brain oscillations and inducing long-term synaptic plasticity. Therefore, tACS has been investigated in cognitive neuroscience, but only recently, it has been also introduced in psychiatric clinical trials. This review describes current concepts and first findings of applying tACS as a potential therapeutic tool in the field of psychiatry. The current understanding of its mechanisms of action is explained, bridging cellular neuronal activity and the brain network mechanism. Revisiting the relevance of altered brain oscillations found in six major psychiatric disorders, putative targets for the management of mental disorders using tACS are discussed. A systematic literature search on PubMed was conducted to report findings of the clinical studies applying tACS in patients with psychiatric conditions. In conclusion, the initial results may support the feasibility of tACS in clinical psychiatric populations without serious adverse events. Moreover, these results showed the ability of tACS to reset disturbed brain oscillations, and thus to improve behavioural outcomes. In addition to its potential therapeutic role, the reactivity of the brain circuits to tACS could serve as a possible tool to determine the diagnosis, classification or prognosis of psychiatric disorders. Future double-blind randomised controlled trials are necessary to answer currently unresolved questions. They may aim to detect response predictors and control for various confounding factors.
Highlights
Transcranial alternating current stimulation is a widely used non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) method
Its use in psychiatric clinical research began with case reports [3], and only recently have the first well-structured double-blind randomized controlled trials examined its efficacy for the treatment of psychiatric disorders [4]. Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) involves direct delivery of alternating electric currents to the scalp
Twice daily for 5 days, 9 patients continued for 5 more days, and another patient continued for 4 more days
Summary
Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) is a widely used non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) method. It has been used for more than a decade in different fields, such as cognitive neuroscience [1, 2]. TACS involves direct delivery of alternating electric currents to the scalp. The current travels through the skull to affect mostly cortical neurons. Such alternating current has a sinusoidal waveform where the voltage changes gradually from positive to negative every half-cycle. The current flows from an anodal electrode to a cathodal electrode in one half-cycle and in the reverse direction in the second half-cycle [5]
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