Randomized Controlled Trial of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation over the Supplementary Motor Area in Tourette Syndrome
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the supplementary motor area (SMA) has shown promise in Tourette syndrome (TS), but previous studies were limited in size and stimulation duration. OBJECTIVE: The aim was to explore the efficacy and safety of multiple sessions of cathodal tDCS over the bilateral SMA on tic severity in TS. METHODS: A double-blind, randomized, sham-controlled trial 1 mA cathodal tDCS over bilateral SMA was performed in participants with TS older than 16 years. The intervention involved two 20-min periods of stimulation with either sham or active tDCS per day, over 5 consecutive days, during which participants actively suppressed tics. Tic severity was measured using the Yale Global Tic Severity Scale Total Tic Severity (YGTSS-TTS, primary outcome) score at baseline, day 5 (visit 5), and 1 week later (visit 6). Questionnaires focusing on comorbidities were performed at baseline and visit 6. RESULTS: Twenty-four participants were randomly assigned (12 active, 12 sham; 8 women; median age: 26). We observed a significant effect of visit on YGTSS-TSS, but no significant effect of treatment or treatment × visit interaction emerged. In contrast, a statistically significant effect of the treatment × visit interaction was observed for the motor tic subscore, with significantly larger improvement in the active arm. Furthermore, we detected a significantly larger decrease in premonitory urge intensity at visit 6 after active stimulation. No effect was detected on severity of comorbidities. CONCLUSIONS: This preliminary study suggests that bilateral tDCS over the SMA provides small, but significant benefits in reducing motor tic severity in TS.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.005 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.009 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".