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Using Remotely Supervised At-Home TES for Enhancing Mental Resilience
Jasmina Paneva1,2, Inge Leunissen1,2, Teresa Schuhmann1,2,3
1Section Brain Stimulation and Cognition, Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
|June 27, 2022
Summary
Remote supervision of at-home Transcranial Electrical Stimulation (TES) could help overcome the mental health crisis. This approach aims to scale treatment accessibility for major depressive disorder by addressing barriers of time and cost.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Psychiatry
- Digital Health
Background:
- Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a prevalent mental health crisis, with a significant portion of patients unresponsive to standard treatments.
- Noninvasive Brain Stimulation (NIBS) shows promise for depression treatment but faces scalability issues due to clinic-based requirements.
- Current NIBS treatments demand frequent patient visits, posing substantial time and financial burdens on patients and healthcare systems.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the potential of remotely supervised Transcranial Electrical Stimulation (TES) for at-home administration.
- To explore how at-home TES can address the scaling problem in mental health treatment and enable home-based neuroenhancement.
- To discuss challenges and propose solutions for safe and effective remote TES implementation.
Main Methods:
- Perspective-based assessment of Transcranial Electrical Stimulation (TES) for remote supervision.
- Discussion of social, ethical, and technical challenges associated with hardware and software solutions for remote TES.
- Proposal of solutions for user safety, including training, screening, and monitoring of compliance and side effects.
Main Results:
- Remotely supervised at-home TES offers a potential solution to scale treatment accessibility for mental health disorders like depression.
- Addressing challenges in hardware, software, user safety, and monitoring is crucial for successful implementation.
- Future integration with AI and digital monitoring could enable proactive mental wellbeing management and relapse prevention.
Conclusions:
- Remotely supervised at-home TES, combined with AI, can be a powerful tool to combat the mental health crisis.
- This approach has the potential to deliver personalized mental healthcare directly to patients' homes.
- Overcoming identified challenges is key to realizing the transformative potential of at-home neuroenhancement technologies.
Keywords:
at-home TESmajor depressive disorder (MDD)mental resiliencenoninvasive brain stimulation (NIBS)relapse preventiontranscranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)transcranial electrical stimulation (TES)
