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A new international clinical trial has found that people living with major depression can reliably use a noninvasive brain stimulation system at home. Published in JAMA Network Open, the study shows that a relatively complex remote treatment protocol can be delivered safely and feasibly across several countries, while also underscoring the need to better understand what drives symptom improvement in depression trials.

Depression affects millions of people worldwide, and while medication and psychotherapy can be effective, not everyone responds to existing treatments. Researchers are therefore exploring alternatives that could make mental health care more accessible, including technologies that patients can use at home.

The international clinical trial, known as DiSCoVeR, examined whether combining noninvasive electrical brain stimulation with a specially designed video game could help reduce symptoms of major depression when administered mostly at home.

The project was led by Mor Nahum from the Hebrew University, with clinical sites at Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem (Omer Bonne and Dr. Amit Lotan), LMU Munich (Frank Padberg; first author Esther Dechantsreiter) and Riga Stradins University (Elmars Rancans). The intervention technology was developed with the University of Geneva (Daphne Bavelier) and EPFL (Friedhelm Hummel), and statistical analyses were led by Yuval Benjamini (Hebrew University) and Stephan Goerigk (LMU Munich).

The technique, called transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), delivers a weak electrical current through electrodes placed on the scalp to influence brain activity.

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