A 2026 systematic review found 15 clinical reports of deep brain stimulation for cerebellar ataxia, covering only 27 human patients across heterogeneous targets, causes, and outcome measures. Research Highlights The human evidence base was tiny: the review found 27 patients across 15 clinical studies, including 10 case reports, 4 case series, and 1 randomized trial. …
Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has been pitched as a scalable cognitive-enhancement tool for schizophrenia, where roughly 98% of patients show working-memory deficits, but a 2026 sham-controlled crossover trial from Ke et al. delivered the standard 1.5 mA anodal protocol over the right DLPFC to 27 stable patients and found no detectable benefit over sham.1 …
A 2026 medRxiv preprint reported that an at-home subcallosal cingulate cortex deep brain stimulation (SCC DBS) recording system could track stable recovery in severe treatment-resistant depression: in 7 analyzable patients, the local-field-potential biomarker predicted weekly recovery states with 0.72 ± 0.16 accuracy.1 The useful claim is not that brain recordings can diagnose depression broadly; it …
A 2026 secondary randomized-trial analysis found that low-intensity focused ultrasound and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation reached statistically similar 2-week post-treatment motor scores after subacute stroke, even though LIFU produced larger median Fugl–Meyer Assessment gains than rTMS: 7 vs. 2 upper-limb points and 3 vs. 1 lower-limb points.1 LIFU therefore carries the recovery-dynamics signal in this …
A 2026 case series of 10 adults with refractory postherpetic neuralgia found: 3 of 8 patients responded to a spinal cord stimulation trial, 2 kept meaningful 24-month relief after implantation, and 3 dorsal root entry zone lesioning cases reported 60-90% pain relief at 24 months.1 The data are too small to rank the procedures, but …
A 2026 first-in-human medRxiv preprint reported that closed-loop subgaleal intersectional short-pulse stimulation shortened stimulated seizures by 52% on average and reduced seizure incidence by 80.9% after 48 hours in 5 high-frequency therapy-resistant epilepsy patients. The signal is promising because it combines responsive seizure detection with electrode strips placed under the scalp rather than electrodes implanted …
Cognitive impairment in first-episode schizophrenia (FES) is the symptom that does the most work blocking employment, relationships, and independent living — and the symptom current antipsychotics barely move. A 2026 RCT by Hu et al. in Psychological Medicine tested whether 20 sessions of low-frequency rTMS targeting the right orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) could improve cognition where …