Study suggests brain stimulation techniqueas safe treatment for teenagers with OCD

Lucknow: Researchers at King George's Medical University (KGMU) have discovered that a new brain stimulation technique called transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) might be a safe and effective treatment for teenagers with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
OCD affects about 1-3% of teenagers, causing unwanted and repeated thoughts and behaviours.
It is often hereditary if a child has gone through a stressful or traumatic event. Occasionally, even a streptococcal infection can cause a child to develop OCD symptoms. tDCS works by sending a low electrical current through the scalp to stimulate specific areas of the brain.
This technique has already been used to help with various neurological conditions in both children and adults. The KGMU study, recently published in the World Journal of Clinical Paediatrics, tested tDCS as an additional therapy in 18 teenagers with OCD who hadn't started medication yet.
In the study, the 36 teenagers were split into two groups. One group received active tDCS, while the other received a fake (sham) treatment. Both groups also took fluoxetine, a common medication for OCD. The tDCS treatment involved applying the electrical current to certain brain areas for 20 minutes over 10 sessions.
To see if there were any changes in the teenagers' OCD symptoms, researchers used the Children's Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (CY-BOCS) to reassess participants at 2, 6, and 12 weeks. By the end of the 12-week study, both groups showed significant improvements in their symptoms.
The group that received active tDCS saw a more significant reduction in symptoms within the first two weeks compared to the sham group. On average, the active tDCS group improved by 11.8 points on the CY-BOCS scale, while the sham group improved by 5.25 points.
Prof Vivek Agrawal, who led the study, said, "tDCS was found safe and well-tolerated by the adolescents, with similar side effects in both the active and sham groups."
"This pilot study by KGMU opens the door for more research into non-invasive brain stimulation techniques as potential early interventions for OCD in young people, offering hope for better treatment options in the future," Agrawal added.
Dr Sujita Kumar Kar, another researcher involved in the study, said, "While tDCS shows promise, more extensive studies with larger participant groups are needed to confirm its effectiveness as an early treatment for OCD in adolescents."