Neuromdulation Group, Department of Psychology and Neurosciences, Leibniz-Institut für Arbeitsforschung an der TU Dortmund, Dortmund.
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics, and Psychotherapy, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany.
Curr Opin Psychiatry. 2024 Mar 1;37(2):78-86. doi: 10.1097/YCO.0000000000000923. Epub 2024 Jan 3.
Noninvasive brain stimulation (NIBS) is a promising method for altering cortical excitability with clinical implications. It has been increasingly used in children, especially in neurodevelopmental disorders. Yet, its safety and applications in the developing brain require further investigation. This review aims to provide an overview of the safety of commonly used NIBS techniques in children, including transcranial electrical stimulation (tES) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Safety data for other NIBS methods is not reported in this review.
In line with studies from the last decade, findings in the last 2 years (2022-2023) support the safety of NIBS in children and adolescents within the currently applied protocols. Both tES and TMS are well tolerated, if safety rules, including exclusion criteria, are applied.
We briefly discussed developmental aspects of stimulation parameters that need to be considered in the developing brain and provided an up-to-date overview of tES/TMS applications in children and adolescents. Overall, the safety profile of tES/TMS in children is good. For both the tES and TMS applications, epilepsy and active seizure disorder should be exclusion criteria to prevent potential seizures. Using child-sized earplugs is required for TMS applications. We lack large randomized double-blind trialsand longitudinal studies to establish the safety of NIBS in children.
非侵入性脑刺激（NIBS）是一种有前景的改变皮质兴奋性的方法，具有临床意义。它在儿童中越来越多地被应用，特别是在神经发育障碍中。然而，其在发育中的大脑中的安全性和应用需要进一步研究。本综述旨在概述常用于儿童的常见 NIBS 技术的安全性，包括经颅电刺激（tES）和经颅磁刺激（TMS）。本综述未报告其他 NIBS 方法的安全性数据。
与过去十年的研究一致，过去 2 年（2022-2023 年）的研究结果支持目前应用方案中儿童和青少年接受 NIBS 的安全性。如果应用安全规则，包括排除标准，tES 和 TMS 均具有良好的耐受性。
我们简要讨论了刺激参数的发育方面，这些方面在发育中的大脑中需要考虑，并提供了 tES/TMS 在儿童和青少年中的应用的最新概述。总体而言，tES/TMS 在儿童中的安全性良好。对于 tES 和 TMS 的应用，癫痫和活动性癫痫发作应作为排除标准，以防止潜在的癫痫发作。TMS 应用需要使用儿童尺寸的耳塞。我们缺乏大规模的随机双盲试验和纵向研究来确定 NIBS 在儿童中的安全性。
