Current Status of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation in Posttraumatic Stress and Other Anxiety Disorders.

ABSTRACT: Several empirically supported treatments have been identified for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), yet a sizable number of patients are either unable to tolerate these approaches or remain symptomatic following treatment. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a well-tolerated method of modulating neuronal excitability that may hold promise as a novel intervention in PTSD and related disorders. The current review summarizes literature on the disrupted neural circuitry in PTSD and discusses the rationale for the commonly targeted prefrontal cortex (PFC) as it relates to PTSD. We then review the few prior (case) studies that have evaluated tDCS in patients with PTSD (1 study) and other anxiety disorders (4 studies). There was considerable variability in both the methods/just

SUBMITTER: Hampstead BM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5824434 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature