Efficacy and Safety of Deep Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: A Prospective Multicenter Randomized Double-Blind Placebo-Controlled Trial

What is it about?

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a chronic and disabling disorder that often unsatisfactorily responds to pharmacological and psychological treatments. Converging evidence suggests a dysfunction of the cortical-striatal-thalamic-cortical circuit (CSTC) in OCD. The authors examined the therapeutic effect of Deep TMS stimulation over the Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) and the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in a large double-blind, sham-controlled, FDA-regulated, multicenter study. They found that a reduction of symptom severity in patients who received active dTMS treatment was significantly higher than in patients who received sham treatment. This may imply that dTMS over the ACC and mPFC significantly improves OCD symptoms and represent a potential intervention for patients who do not respond to adequate pharmacological and psychological interventions.  

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