Trial reportJournal of affective disorders2021
Intermittent Theta Burst Stimulation in Veterans with Mild Alcohol Use Disorder.
Trial report in Journal of affective disorders, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 12 citations in OpenAlex.
- Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation for post-traumatic stress disorder in adults.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2024Pooled it
- Innovating transcranial magnetic stimulation treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder: Zapping away the bad memory.Fundamental research · 2025Review
- Interventional Psychiatry and Emerging Treatments for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): A Systematic Review.Psychiatry and clinical psychopharmacology · 2025Article
- Novel Approaches for the Treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: A Systematic Review of Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation Interventions and Insights from Clinical Trials.Brain sciences · 2024Review
- Prolonged intermittent theta burst stimulation for post-stroke aphasia: protocol of a randomized, double-blinded, sham-controlled trial.Frontiers in neurology · 2024Article
- Intermittent Theta Burst Stimulation vs. High-Frequency Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation in the Treatment of Methamphetamine Patients.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundAlcohol use disorder (AUD) is highly comorbid with depression and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and can complicate their treatment. Transcranial magnetic stimulation is a promising treatment for these disorders, yet prior research often excluded AUD patients out of concern for safety or poorer outcomes. To this end, we revisited a prior study of intermittent theta burst stimulation (iTBS) for PTSD, to evaluate whether mild AUD impacted safety and clinical outcomes.
methodsFifty veterans with PTSD (n=17, with comorbid AUD) received 10 days of sham-controlled iTBS, followed by 10 unblinded sessions. Stimulation was delivered at 80% of the motor threshold for 1800 pulses to the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Safety, PTSD and depressive outcomes were evaluated with repeated measures analysis of variance, to examine the effects of time, treatment group and comorbid AUD.
resultsiTBS was safe, although AUD patients reported more adverse events, regardless of whether they received active or sham stimulation. Regarding clinical outcomes, patients with AUD who received active stimulation demonstrated a greater rate of improvement in depression symptoms than those without comorbid AUD. The presence of AUD did not impact PTSD symptom change. LIMITATIONS: Limitations include a modest sample size and use of a categorical, rather than continuous, index of AUD diagnosis.
conclusionWhile these results require replication, they indicate that iTBS is likely safe in patients with mild comorbid AUD. We propose that comorbid AUD should not preclude clinical use of iTBS, and that iTBS should be further investigated as a novel treatment option for AUD.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.