ArticleFrontiers in psychiatry2024
Effects of transcranial magnetic stimulation on sleep structure and quality in children with autism.
Article in Frontiers in psychiatry, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Excitation/Inhibition Balance as a Mechanistic Link Between Sleep Disturbance and Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Bidirectional Framework.Alpha psychiatry · 2026Review
- The applications of TMS in brain function assessment and treatment of mental disorders: a narrative review.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Review
- Evaluating the effect of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation on sleep difficulties in children with autism spectrum disorder: a randomized controlled trial.Sleep advances : a journal of the Sleep Research Society · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Introduction: Sleep disorders are common in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) can influence the excitability of neuronal cells in stimulated areas, leading to improvements in sleep and other autistic symptoms. However, studies on clinical mechanisms of TMS in treating sleep disorders associated with ASD are limited. Therefore, we aimed to explore the effects of TMS on sleep structure and quality in children with ASD. Methods: Between January 2020 and December 2021, recruitment was advertised through child and adolescent outpatient clinics and online platforms by the Hangzhou Seventh People's Hospital and Lishui Second People's Hospital. Sixty children with ASD who met the diagnostic criteria of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, were selected and randomly divided into the active TMS and sham TMS treatment groups. Thirty healthy children of the same age were recruited as controls. The active TMS group received bilateral low-frequency (0.5 Hz) TMS targeting the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex on both sides in children with ASD, whereas the sham TMS group received sham stimulation with the same stimulation time and location as the experimental group. Both groups were treated for 6 weeks, and the participants were assessed using the Sleep Disturbance Scale for Children (SDSC) before treatment, at 3 weeks, and at 6 weeks of intervention. Independent sample Results: No significant differences were observed in general demographic variables, such as age and sex, between the ASD and control groups ( Conclusion: Low-frequency TMS targeting the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in children with ASD can effectively improve their sleep status, and significant improvement can be achieved after 6 weeks (30 sessions) of treatment.
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