Catatonia is a severe neuropsychiatric syndrome, usually treated by
benzodiazepines and electroconvulsive therapy. However, therapeutic alternatives are limited, which is particularly critical in situations of treatment resistance or when electroconvulsive therapy is not available.
Transcranial direct-current stimulation (
tDCS) is a promising non-invasive neuromodulatory technique that has shown efficacy in other psychiatric conditions. We present the largest case series of
tDCS use in
catatonia, consisting of eight patients in whom
tDCS targeting the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and temporoparietal junction was employed. We used a General Linear Mixed Model to isolate the effect of
tDCS from other confounding factors such as time (spontaneous evolution) or co-prescriptions. The results indicate that
tDCS, in addition to symptomatic
pharmacotherapies such as
lorazepam, seems to effectively reduce catatonic symptoms. These results corroborate a synthesis of five previous case reports of
catatonia treated by
tDCS in the literature. However, the specific efficacy of
tDCS in
catatonia remains to be demonstrated in a randomized controlled trial. The development of therapeutic alternatives in
catatonia is of paramount importance.