Journal
JOURNAL OF HEADACHE AND PAIN
Volume 15, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
SPRINGEROPEN
DOI: 10.1186/1129-2377-15-78
Keywords
Trigeminal neuralgia; Pain processing; Transcranial direct current stimulation; Clinical electrophysiology
Categories
Funding
- Astellas
- CSL Behring
- Grunental
- Allergan
- Biogen Idec
- Novartis
- Sanofi-Aventis
- Genzyme
- Pfizer
- Teva
- Electrocore
- German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF)
- Almirall
- AstraZeneca
- Bayer
- Galaxo-Smith-Kline
- Janssen-Cilag
- German Research Council (DFG)
- German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)
- European Union
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Background: Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) of the primary motor cortex has been shown to modulate pain and trigeminal nociceptive processing. Methods: Ten patients with classical trigeminal neuralgia (TN) were stimulated daily for 20 minutes over two weeks using anodal (1 mA) or sham tDCS over the primary motor cortex (M1) in a randomized double-blind cross-over design. Primary outcome variable was pain intensity on a verbal rating scale (VRS 0-10). VRS and attack frequency were assessed for one month before, during and after tDCS. The impact on trigeminal pain processing was assessed with pain-related evoked potentials (PREP) and the nociceptive blink reflex (nBR) following electrical stimulation on both sides of the forehead before and after tDCS. Results: Anodal tDCS reduced pain intensity significantly after two weeks of treatment. The attack frequency reduction was not significant. PREP showed an increased N2 latency and decreased peak-to-peak amplitude after anodal tDCS. No severe adverse events were reported. Conclusion: Anodal tDCS over two weeks ameliorates intensity of pain in TN. It may become a valuable treatment option for patients unresponsive to conventional treatment.
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