Non-invasive brain stimulation in children creates opportunities and risks

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TMSvtDCSBrain Stim­u­la­tion in Chil­dren Spurs Hope—and Con­cern (Sci­en­tif­ic American):

“The idea of using mag­nets or elec­tric cur­rents to treat psy­chi­atric or learn­ing dis­or­ders — or just to enhance cog­ni­tion — has gen­er­at­ed a flur­ry of excite­ment over the past ten years. The tech­nique is thought to work by acti­vat­ing neur­al cir­cuits or by mak­ing it eas­i­er for neu­rons to fire. The research is still in its infan­cy, but at least 10,000 adults have under­gone such stim­u­la­tion, and it seems to be safe — at least in the short term. One ver­sion of the tech­nol­o­gy, called tran­scra­nial mag­net­ic stim­u­la­tion (TMS), has been approved by the US Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion to treat migraine and depres­sion in adults.

Inter­est is grow­ing, how­ev­er, in whether such tech­nolo­gies might have even greater ben­e­fits in chil­dren. Par­tic­u­lar­ly promis­ing is TMS’s cheap­er and more-portable cousin, tran­scra­nial direct-cur­rent stim­u­la­tion (TDCS)…

Researchers say that the stim­u­la­tion effects are like­ly to pen­e­trate deep­er in chil­dren because their skulls are thin­ner than adults’, and might have more of an impact in brains that are still grow­ing. How­ev­er, the same fac­tors that inten­si­fy the poten­tial ben­e­fits are also cause for concern…(researcher Nick Davis) esti­mates that at least 1,000 chil­dren around the world have received some kind of brain stim­u­la­tion as part of clin­i­cal stud­ies, and expects more in future. He stress­es the impor­tance of pub­lish­ing the results of any work done in chil­dren. “I would urge all sci­en­tists to share their results when chil­dren and young peo­ple are giv­en brain stim­u­la­tion, to allow oth­er sci­en­tists to learn from ‘failed’ tri­als and to adapt the pro­to­cols if needed.”

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