Progress of transcranial direct current stimulation for treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder / 上海交通大学学报（医学版）

ABSTRACT

Obsessive-compulsive disorder is a disabling disease with symptoms of repeated and persistent unwanted intrusive thoughts and compulsive behaviors. The current first-line treatment methods mainly include psychopharmacology, psychotherapy, and the combination of both, but nearly 40% patients still show no response to conventional treatment. Among the recently developed treatments, non-invasive brain stimulation techniques, such as transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), are expected to alleviate the symptoms of various psychiatric disorders and improve cognitive function. tDCS has been applied to the treatment of depression, schizophrenia, generalized anxiety disorder and other mental diseases, and has achieved definite clinical effect. However, there are few studies about tDCS applying to the obsessive-compulsive disorder, especially in the number of randomized controlled trials. Most of the studies are open trials and case reports, and the results are inconsistent. By reviewing the effect of tDCS in treating obsessive-compulsive disorder patients in existing reports, the possibility of applying tDCS widely to treating obsessive-compulsive disorder in the future is analyzed.