01/29/2026
New research from LIBR, published in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, reveals a dual effect of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) in individuals with anxious depression.
🧠 A single session of frontal tDCS improved attention, task engagement, and activation in executive brain regions—but also unexpectedly increased sensitivity to threat, including heightened amygdala response and startle reactions.
These findings suggest tDCS may be most effective as a supporting tool, paired with therapies that benefit from increased focus and engagement, rather than as a standalone treatment.
Led by Maria Ironside, DPhil, this study helps clarify how noninvasive brain stimulation affects both cognition and emotion—and why personalized, targeted approaches to depression treatment are so important.
🔬 Read the full open-access study here: https://www.biologicalpsychiatrycnni.org/article/S2451-9022(25)00336-2/fulltext