Noninvasive brain stimulation techniques in psychosis
Résumé
Noninvasive brain stimulation techniques are safe tools to modulate the brain activity and connectivity in vivo. They offer promise to alleviate psychotic symptoms, mainly in patients with schizophrenia. Evidence suggests that low-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) targeting the left temporoparietal junction may decrease auditory verbal hallucinations with a moderate effect size. High-frequency rTMS targeting the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex yields encouraging results to alleviate negative symptoms of schizophrenia, but recent findings have diminished the enthusiasm raised by the first studies. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is an emerging field that shows promises to decrease hallucinations and negative symptoms in schizophrenia, but it suffers from a lack of large randomized controlled studies to confirm its interest in psychosis. Overall, electromagnetic techniques are promising techniques, offering new perspectives for treating psychotic symptoms but further studies are needed to draw a clear-cut conclusion.