[Patient partnership and neuromodulation in mental health: A field worth cultivating]

Background/Originality Collaboration between patient partners (PPs), clinicians, and researchers is rapidly expanding in mental health care and research. This participatory approach, integrating patient experiential knowledge with scientific expertise is progressively transforming research paradigms with significant positive impacts. Patient engagement promotes adhesion to research projects, facilitates knowledge transfer, and contributes to reducing the stigma associated with mental illness. In addition, it helps advance therapeutic targets and interventions that better address patients' real-world needs. Neuromodulation is an emerging field with the potential to overcome many limitations of our current mental health systems. Its therapeutic efficacy has been demonstrated for various psychiatric conditions, yet it remains largely unknown to the public and inaccessible to many patients who could benefit from these otherwise promising interventions. The involvement of PPs in neuromodulation research and its impacts, currently undocumented in the scientific literature, would offer new and necessary perspectives on these challenges and warrants further investigation. Objective This article explores the roles and impacts of PP engagement in mental health research involving neuromodulation, with a focus on the specific issues that affect its implementation. We also examine the perspectives of both the PP and the researchers currently collaborating on TENTADIS, a project investigating home-based transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) for individuals suffering from borderline personality disorder. Through an examination of the literature and experiential reflections, this paper identifies various roles that the patient partner can fill in the co-construction of neuromodulation research and the important effects of such partnerships. Method/Expected Results This perspective article is based on a reflective analysis of co-construction experiences within the TENTADIS project, integrated with current literature on neuromodulation research and participatory approaches in mental health. Expected Impacts (Discussion) Within the TENTADIS research project, the PP actively participates in protocol development, contributing experiential knowledge that highlights practical constraints, participant expectations, and patient needs, thus enriching project design. Expected outcomes include advances in understanding both clinical and patient-related issues associated with neuromodulation, and identification of the specific contributions PPs can make in this field. This collaboration illustrates how co-construction can reduce barriers to access, improve intervention acceptability, and accelerate the implementation of neuromodulation in mental health services.