Reacción a "Home brain stimulation device improves symptoms of depression, clinical trial finds"

The research measures the effect of self-applied transcranial direct current stimulation at home, with the online assistance of a professional, versus sham stimulation, on reducing scores on a depression scale. The results of the study after ten weeks (too short a period to assess the true impact of the intervention in the medium to long term) indicate that both groups reduced their scores, both those who self-administered genuine and sham stimulation, but that the former scored significantly lower than the latter.

These results account for the placebo effect that occurs in efficacy studies. In this case, having a high-tech device applied to the head and monitored by a professional at each session generates hope and short-term improvements (we do not know what happens after ten weeks), even if the treatment is simulated. One wonders how much of the statistically significant difference is because many participants could sense whether they were in the treatment or sham group by the side effects that were anticipated by the participants: for example, 63.5% of those who received transcranial stimulation had reddening of the skin where the electrodes were placed (indicative of being in the treatment group), and only 18% of those who received sham reported this effect.

The researchers' extensive declaration of conflicts of interest is troubling because of the financial ties of many of them to biomedical companies involved in commercialising treatments, with the second signatory declaring that he works full-time for such a company. This study is also a constant illustration of how mental health research and its dissemination is determined by the large companies that sell medications and other technological products, which means that the hegemonic discourse on mental suffering and its approach is reduced to the individual and their brain, disregarding the social, biographical and wider contextual factors of people's lives.