Scientists published results of treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) using electrical brain stimulation and virtual reality (VR) this week in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.
Researchers at Brown University and the Providence VA Neurotechnology Center conducted an exposure therapy experiment with 54 veterans. It was a method of alleviating the PTSD response by gradually exposing people to fear-inducing objects. The experimenters experienced virtual reality depicting a battlefield situation six times over two to three weeks for 25 minutes.
“It can be difficult for patients to repeatedly talk about personal trauma, which is one of the most common reasons they stop psychotherapy,” said Noah Philip, a professor of psychiatry at Brown University. “Exposure to virtual reality tends to be much easier for patients.” to deal with,” he said.
Half of the participants in the experiment also underwent transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). This is a treatment that involves the application of electrodes to the head and stimulation with electric current. According to the researchers, participants who received both VR exposure therapy and tDCS showed significant improvement in PTSD symptoms after three treatments. The speed with which the treatment effect manifested itself was also high. When exposure therapy was performed for approximately 12 weeks, symptom relief occurred in just 2 weeks.
Popular Science US points out that the experimental sample is not large enough to generalize. The researchers plan to expand the experimental group in follow-up studies.
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