A group of European experts was commissioned by the European Chapter of the International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology to gather knowledge about the state of the art of the therapeutic use of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) from studies published up until September 2016, regarding pain, Parkinson's disease, other movement disorders, motor stroke, poststroke aphasia, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, consciousness disorders, Alzheimer's disease, tinnitus, depression, schizophrenia, and craving/addiction. The evidence-based analysis included only studies based on repeated tDCS sessions with sham tDCS control procedure; 25 patients or more having received active treatment was required for Class I, while a lower number of 10-24 patients was accepted for Class II studies. Current evidence does not allow making any recommendation of Level A (definite efficacy) for any indication. Level B recommendation (probable efficacy) is proposed for: (i) anodal tDCS of the left primary motor cortex (M1) (with right orbitofrontal cathode) in fibromyalgia; (ii) anodal tDCS of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) (with right orbitofrontal cathode) in major depressive episode without drug resistance; (iii) anodal tDCS of the right DLPFC (with left DLPFC cathode) in addiction/craving. Level C recommendation (possible efficacy) is proposed for anodal tDCS of the left M1 (or contralateral to pain side, with right orbitofrontal cathode) in chronic lower limb neuropathic pain secondary to spinal cord lesion. Conversely, Level B recommendation (probable inefficacy) is conferred on the absence of clinical effects of: (i) anodal tDCS of the left temporal cortex (with right orbitofrontal cathode) in tinnitus; (ii) anodal tDCS of the left DLPFC (with right orbitofrontal cathode) in drug-resistant major depressive episode. It remains to be clarified whether the probable or possible therapeutic effects of tDCS are clinically meaningful and how to optimally perform tDCS in a therapeutic setting. In addition, the easy management and low cost of tDCS devices allow at home use by the patient, but this might raise ethical and legal concerns with regard to potential misuse or overuse. We must be careful to avoid inappropriate applications of this technique by ensuring rigorous training of the professionals and education of the patients.

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In this study, distinct empathic profiles in children with ASD and CD-CU+ were found. Furthermore, the work demonstrates improvement of empathic skills throughout childhood and adolescence, which is comparable for individuals with psychiatric disorders and control children. These results yield implications for further research as well as for therapeutic interventions.

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is an established optical neuroimaging method for measuring functional hemodynamic responses to infer neural activation. However, the impact of individual anatomy on the sensitivity of fNIRS measuring hemodynamics within cortical gray matter is still unknown. By means of Monte Carlo simulations and structural MRI of 23 healthy subjects (mean age: years), we characterized the individual distribution of tissue-specific NIR-light absorption underneath 24 prefrontal fNIRS channels. We, thereby, investigated the impact of scalp-cortex distance (SCD), frontal sinus volume as well as sulcal morphology on gray matter volumes () traversed by NIR-light, i.e. anatomy-dependent fNIRS sensitivity. The NIR-light absorption between optodes was distributed describing a rotational ellipsoid with a mean penetration depth of considering the deepest of light. Of the detected photon packages scalp and bone absorbed and absorbed of the energy. The mean volume was negatively correlated () with the SCD and frontal sinus volume () and was reduced by in subjects with relatively large compared to small frontal sinus. Head circumference was significantly positively correlated with the mean SCD () and the traversed frontal sinus volume (). Sulcal morphology had no significant impact on . Our findings suggest to consider individual SCD and frontal sinus volume as anatomical factors impacting fNIRS sensitivity. Head circumference may represent a practical measure to partly control for these sources of error variance.

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