A new study suggests that people suffering from a bout of clinical depression might someday don a headset and administer a light electrical current to their brain to ease symptoms. Researchers say a clinical trial involving more than 170 people in the US and UK showed promise toward that end, reports the Guardian. To be clear, plenty of caveats remain, but if further research backs up the results laid out in Nature Medicine, this "could be a game-changer for the more than one-third of people with depression who do not respond to standard treatments such as antidepressants or psychotherapy," per Nature.
In the study of people undergoing a depressive episode, researchers had roughly half the participants use something akin to a swimming cap to administer a weak, painless current to their brain through electrodes placed in the scalp—a procedure known as transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). The other half used a similar-looking device, but after an initial tiny jolt (to prevent them from guessing they were deploying a placebo), their devices provided no current. A doctor supervised all patients by video. After three months, both groups showed improvement, but those using the real current "showed significantly greater improvement in their symptoms" compared to the control group, per Live Science.
"This is a potential first line treatment for depression," says Cynthia Fu of King's College London and senior author of the study. "It can also be used for people whose depression hasn't improved with antidepressant medication, for people who don't like antidepressant medication, or who don't want psychotherapy." However, Nature notes that previous studies have shown that tDCS is not effective for all patients. A line of future study might be to better understand why individuals respond better to particular treatments. (More depression stories.)
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