Case controlled study of therapeutic effect of transcranial direct current stimulation on working memory in recent onset schizophrenia

Abstract

Recent studies are evaluating new non-invasive strategies such as rTMs and tDCS for improving neurological systems of brain; therefore, we are going to study the treatment effects of tDCS on working memory of patients with schizophrenia. Methods & Materials: The present study was a double blind randomized clinical trial on 40 patients suffering from schizophrenia (diagnosed based on DSM5). The patients were randomized into two groups of control and experimental. In the experimental group all the participants received three sessions of tDCS with duration of 30 minutes and 72 hours time in between. Then the working memory was assessed using letter-number sequencing test before and after the treatment and the results were recorded. Analysis of the data was done by SPSS version 22.

Results: Among 40 cases, 4 patients (10%) were female and 36 patients (90%) were male. Mean age was 44.12 (±11.20) ranging from 27 to 60 years. Comparisons between the functions of the patients in the tests before and after tDCS demonstrated that their results were significantly better in comparison with those before treatment (p=0.001). The comparison of the results of control group demonstrated that through all the before and after tDCS tests, the results did not have any significant changes (p=0.216). Comparison of the tests before and after tDCS or sham among two groups demonstrated that those patients treating with tDCS had significantly improved in comparison with the control group.