Although transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) shows promise as a treatment for auditory verbal hallucinations in patients with schizophrenia, mechanisms through which tDCS may induce beneficial effects remain unclear. Evidence points to the involvement of neuronal plasticity mechanisms that are underpinned, amongst others, by brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in its two main forms: pro and mature peptides. Here, we aimed to investigate whether tDCS modulates neural plasticity by measuring the acute effects of tDCS on peripheral mature BDNF levels in patients with schizophrenia. Blood samples were collected in 24 patients with schizophrenia before and after they received a single session of either active (20 min, 2 mA, n = 13) or sham (n = 11) frontotemporal tDCS with the anode over the left prefrontal cortex and the cathode over the left temporoparietal junction. We compared the tDCS-induced changes in serum mature BDNF (mBDNF) levels adjusted for baseline values between the two groups. The results showed that active tDCS was associated with a significantly larger decrease in mBDNF levels (mean -20% ± standard deviation 14) than sham tDCS (-8% ± 21) (F = 5.387; p = 0.030; η2 = 0.205). Thus, mature BDNF may be involved in the beneficial effects of frontotemporal tDCS observed in patients with schizophrenia.
Keywords: mature BDNF; plasticity; schizophrenia; tDCS.