Efficacy of transcranial direct current stimulation in the treatment: Resistant patients who suffer from severe obsessive-compulsive disorder

Abstract

Background: During the past years, significant efforts have been made to explain the biological backgrounds of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Cortical-subcortical and neurotransmitter models are used for explaining the symptoms of OCD, so our hypothesis is that brain's transcranial direct current stimulation (TDCS) can regulate the brain activities of the OCD patients. Thus, based on the mentioned issues, this research seeks to investigate the efficacy of TDCS in treatment-resistant patients who suffer from severe OCD. Materials and Methods: The present study is a clinical trial research which was based on the available sampling method, 42 treatment-resistant patients who suffer from severe OCD were selected as research's samples (2015–2016). Medical intervention protocol in this study is TDCS cathode type that was done in 15 sessions for 3 consecutive weeks (each session was conducted for 30 min daily). Yale–Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale was used for evaluating the efficacy of TDCS method during the 1st, 5th, 10th, and 15th sessions and it was also used for checking the 1st and 3rd monthly follow-up phases. Results: Variance within-group analysis (repeated measure) showed that the mean differences in the different stages of evaluation are significant (seven stages of evaluation). Conclusion: TDCS can be introduced as an appropriate, strong tool for regulating the brain - behavioral systems and it can also be introduced as a suitable alternative treatment for treatment-resistant patients who suffer from severe OCD.

Keywords

• Brain - behavioral systems
• obsessive-compulsive disorder
• transcranial direct current stimulation