O impacto do treino de neurofeedback e estimulação transcraniana por corrente contínua na depressão: estudo exploratório

Abstract

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is considered one of the most disabling diseases in the world. Antidepressants and psychotherapy, the most common first-line therapies for depression, are effective for many people, although a sizable minority (30%) remains significantly resistant to treatment. For years, several studies have reported that, in the future, advances in neuropsychology, neurobiology and neurological rehabilitation would change the paradigm in the way all of us, psychologists, would conduct patient care. That future came with advances in research in Neuroscience. Cerebral stimulation techniques have generated renewed interest in recent decades as promising tools to explore the cortical functions of humanity, and, fundamentally, become a facilitating tool to potentiate results of first-line therapies, and induce and modulate the neuroplasticity of the human cortex. Neurofeedback (NF) is a learning strategy, which can facilitate the alteration of brain waves based on corrective feedback. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a non-invasive neuromodulation technique based on weak direct current stimulation through the scalp. This exploratory study aimed to compare these two neuromodeling techniques in MDD, based on the analysis of different quantitative electroencephalography metrics, such as absolute and relative power, ratio, and asymmetry. The results suggest that the NF acts more in the correction of the Alpha frontal asymmetry, and the tDCS acts improving the power drops in both slow and fast waves, while the NF acts in slow waves, which decreases the number of subjects who have losses of power. Despite obvious limitations, the present investigation presents itself as an important contribution to advance the establishment of neuromodulation as an adjuvant treatment for MDD.