Non-invasive brain stimulation for treating catatonia: a systematic review

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychiatry
• Neuromodulation

Background:

• Non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) offers therapeutic potential for neuropsychiatric disorders by modulating neuroplasticity.
• Catatonia is a complex neuropsychiatric syndrome requiring effective treatment strategies.

Approach:

• Systematic literature search for meta-analyses and studies on electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) for catatonia.
• Methodological quality assessment using AMSTAR2 and Joanna Briggs Institute tools.
• Statistical analysis of symptom score changes post-rTMS and tDCS using paired t-tests and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests.

Key Points:

• Systematic reviews indicate ECT improves catatonia across various types and age groups.
• rTMS treatment resulted in significant symptom improvement (t = 4.489, p = 0.006).
• tDCS treatment also led to significant symptom improvement (z = -3.065, p = 0.002).

Conclusions:

• ECT, rTMS, and tDCS are effective treatments for catatonia.
• NIBS techniques may be beneficial for early intervention and maintaining symptom improvement in catatonia, especially in schizophrenia.
• Further high-quality randomized controlled trials are necessary to confirm the efficacy of NIBS for catatonia.