Flow Research

Transcranial Direct Current stimulator (tDCS) has been used in clinics for over 25 years to treat depression. There are multiple sources of evidence that show it is effective and there are no serious side effects. These range from placebo-controlled clinical trials, the National Health System (NHS) in the United Kingdom studies and open label trials. We have gathered the most prominent research papers in the tDCS community and listed them below.

Placebo-controlled randomised clinical trial

Published in the authoritative Nature Medicine, the design of this trial is considered the gold standard method for evaluating efficacy and took place at Kings College London, UTHealth Houston and the University of East London.

The clinical trial, which lasted 10 weeks, was the largest of its kind and involved patients in the US and UK. Results showed that 57.5% of patients in the treatment group went into remission (meaning that they are no longer considered to be depressed), whilst 64.2% were measured to have an improvement in symptoms of at least 50%. Patients who took a 10-week course of the treatment were about twice as likely to see their depression go into remission than those in a control group who performed the same procedure with the current switched off.

No serious side effects associated with using the device were reported from the treatment group.

Woodham, R.D., Selvaraj, S., Lajmi, N. et al
October 2024
"Beneficial effects in cases of depression that doesn't respond to drugs or therapy." →

Independently published NHS studies

5 NHS services have been using Flow, they each have independently published their results.

Crisis Team, NHS Leicestershire
October 2024
80% of patients reported a decrease in their depression symptoms →

Community Mental Health, NHS Northamptonshire
February 2024
Flow has been successfully integrated into a CMHT depression treatment →

Postnatal depression, NHS Northamptonshire
August 2024
Improvements in depressive symptoms, mood, sleep quality, and overall well-being →

GP Services, NHS Northamptonshire
November 2023
Most participants described a positive impact on depressive symptoms, sleep, and functioning →

GP Services, NHS Northamptonshire
May 2024
Flow tDCS can be delivered through a primary healthcare general practice service →

Clinical research into tDCS

The Flow brain stimulation treatment is based on decades of clinical research with the most recent meta-analyses showing that tDCS has similar efficacy to other treatments but with fewer side effects.

Across 20+ randomised controlled trials, tDCS has been shown to be superior to placebo/sham and no serious adverse events have been observed. tDCS provides an alternative to medication that is effective, safe and accessible.

Nikolin et al.
March 2023
tDCS effect sizes reached a peak at around 6 weeks →

Frengi et al.
July 2020
tDCS for depression is definitely effective (level A evidence) →

Moffa et al.
April 2020
A meta analysis: tDCS was an effective intervention at reducing depressive symptoms →

Razza et al.
February 2020
An analysis of 23 clinical trials with 1092 patients, showing that tDCS is superior to placebo/sham →

Chhabara et al
February 2020
Side effects from tDCS are mild, transient and well tolerated →

Sharafi et al.
July 2019
tDCS is effective in cases where antidepressants don't work →

Wang et al.
June 2019
A meta-analysis; the intervention of tDCS was superior to the use of sham tDCS →

Mutz et al.
March 2019
tDCS was found to be efficacious and comparable to TMS →

Pavlova et al.
March 2018
30-minute tDCS sessions lead to better outcomes than 20-minute sessions →

Bikson et al.
Feb 2018
Low-energy brain stimulation is safe to use →

Brunoni et al.
June 2017
Study including 245 patients, comparing tDCS with a common antidepressant →

Bikson et al.
June 2016
No serious adverse effects were found across 33,000 tDCS sessions with 1000 users →