ArticleFrontiers in psychiatry2026
Combined transcranial photobiomodulation and neurofeedback in PANS/PANDAS: a retrospective case series.
Article in Frontiers in psychiatry, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: PANS and PANDAS are neuroimmune conditions characterized by neuropsychiatric symptoms, including obsessive-compulsive features, cognitive dysfunction, and emotional dysregulation, that may persist despite multimodal treatment. Adjunctive neuromodulation approaches remain underexplored in this population. Methods: This retrospective observational case series describes two adolescents with persistent PANS/PANDAS symptoms despite more than 10 years of multidisciplinary care who received home-based transcranial photobiomodulation (tPBM) using a 1070 nm near-infrared device and adjunctive swLORETA neurofeedback as part of routine clinical care. Multimodal outcomes included the PANS 31-Item Symptom Rating Scale, Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale, CogniFit CAB-Pro, BrainGauge, caregiver-reported functional outcomes, and qEEG. Results: Reductions in neuropsychiatric symptom burden and functional gains were observed during the observation windows. One participant showed a 73% reduction in PANS-31 severity with improvements across multiple cognitive domains; the other showed a 50% reduction in obsessive-compulsive symptom severity and progressed from homebound status to full school participation. Changes were observed across clinical, cognitive, functional, and qEEG measures; however, outcome timing differed across participants and instruments. Conclusion: These findings should be interpreted as preliminary, hypothesis-generating observations only. Because of the retrospective design, very small sample size, prior and concurrent interventions, and non-uniform assessment schedules, no conclusions regarding efficacy, causality, or attribution to either intervention or their combined use can be drawn. Prospective controlled studies are needed to evaluate efficacy, optimal sequencing, and intervention parameters.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.