2017 Volume 9 Issue 1 Pages 50-56
Many treatment strategies including neuromodulation have been proposed for obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) patients who do not respond to conventional pharmacotherapy and behavioral therapy. Neuromodulation that could be effective for OCD includes deep brain stimulation (DBS), electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). Invasiveness, target brain regions, efficacy and adverse events of each treatment were reviewed in this article. DBS could be effective for half of patients with severe and refractory OCD, while it is invasive therapy. ECT will bring some sort of good effect for 60% of patients with OCD, while there is no randomized controlled study so far. tDCS is non-invasive neuromodulation, but the number of clinical trials is low. Finally, rTMS have been well investigated and some meta-analyses showed its efficacy, but the optimal setting is still unknown. As there are advantages and disadvantages for each treatment, further research is needed.
