Brain stimulation may help smokers quit for longer
Analysis shows patients who undergo the therapy are less likely to have taken up smoking again three to six months after quitting
Non-invasive brain stimulation may improve smoking abstinence rates three to six months after patients stop smoking, according to results of a systematic review and meta-analysis.
The therapy has shown promise for helping smokers quit, but less is known about its effectiveness on long-term abstinence.
The two commonly used forms of non-invasive brain stimulation are transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS).
For their analysis, the French researchers looked at seven randomised controlled trials of the therapies in a total of 699 adult smokers seeking to quit.
