Director's Room
The Department of Preventive Intervention for Psychiatric Disorders (DPIPS) was established in the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) affiliated with National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry. Our mission is to implement effective measures to seamlessly cover psychiatric disorders occurring in child, adolescent, and adult periods. The main goals of DPIPS include early detection and intervention on psychiatric disorders, and the development of preventive therapeutics.
One of the current research areas is the investigation of the transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and treatment of schizophrenia. Patients suffering from this serious disease exhibit various psychotic symptoms, as well as profound levels of cognitive impairment, such as disorganized and incoherent speech, confused thoughts, movement disorders, trouble concentrating, etc. These are strongly associated with negative social outcomes for these patients.
To identify and implement the means to facilitate cognitive function in patients with schizophrenia, we are conducting a series of studies on the effect of tDCS on disturbances of cognition and even a higher level of functional outcomes, such as social function.
tDCS is a non-invasive type of neurostimulation that delivers a low electric current to the patient’s scalp and it works by changing the electrical gradient between the inside and the outside of a neural cell, thus stimulating (strengthening or weakening) the respective synaptic transmissions between neurons. If the benefits of tDCS for social function are confirmed, this will increase the chance of functional recovery for patients receiving conventional treatments. Therefore, we are performing randomized controlled studies to evaluate the effect of tDCS on functional capacity, i.e., a higher functional outcome directly related to cognitive function, in patients with schizophrenia.
References:
1. Narita Z, Inagawa T, Maruo K, Sueyoshi K, Sumiyoshi T. Effect of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on Functional Capacity in Schizophrenia: A study protocol for a randomized controlled trial. Front Psychiatry. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2017.00233. PubMed PMID: 29180969 2. Narita Z, Inagawa T., Sueyoshi K., Lin C, Sumiyoshi T.: Possible facilitative effects of repeated anodal transcranial direct current stimulation on functional outcome one month later in schizophrenia: an open trial. Front Psychiatry doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2017.00184. .PMID:29033856 3. Yokoi Y, Narita Z, Sumiyoshi T: Transcranial direct current stimulation in depression and psychosis: A systematic review. Clin EEG Neurosci 49:93-102, 2018 4. Narita Z, Noda T, Setoyama S, Sueyoshi K, Inagawa T, Sumiyoshi T. The effect of transcranial direct current stimulation on psychotic symptoms of schizophrenia is associated with oxy-hemoglobin concentrations in the brain as measured by near-infrared spectroscopy: A pilot study. J Psychiatr Res. 2018;103:5-9. 5. Inagawa T, Narita Z, Sugawara N, Maruo K, Stickley A, Yokoi Y, Sumiyoshi T. A meta-analysis of the effect of multisession transcranial direct current stimulation on cognition in dementia and mild cognitive impairment. Clin EEG Neurosci. 2019;50:273-282. 6. Narita Z, Stickley A, DeVylder J, Yokoi Y, Inagawa T, Yamada Y, Maruo K, Koyanagi A, Oh H, Sawa A, Sumiyoshi T. Effect of multi-session prefrontal transcranial direct current stimulation on cognition in schizophrenia: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Schizophr Res. 2020 216:367-373 7. Sumiyoshi C, Inagawa T, Narita Z, Yamada Y, Sueyoshi K, Hasegawa Y, Shirama A, Hashimoto R, Sumiyoshi T. Facilitative effects of transcranial direct current stimulation on semantic memory examined by text-mining analysis in patients with schizophrenia. Front Neurol, in press