Transcranial direct current stimulation and stroke recovery: opportunities and challenges

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is one type of neuromodulation, which is an emerging technology that holds promise for the future studies on therapeutic and diagnosis applications in treatment of neurological and psychiatric diseases. However, there is a serious question among developing countries with limited financial and human resources, about the potential returns of an investment in this field and regarding the best time to transfer this technology from controlled experimental settings to health systems in the public and private sectors. This article reviews the tDCS as tools of neuromodulation for stroke and discusses the opportunities and challenges available for clinicians and researchers interested in advancing neuromodulation therapy. The aim of this review is to highlight the usefulness of tDCS and to generate an interest that will lead to appropriate studies that assess the true clinical value of tDCS for brain diseases in developing countries. Methods: Literature review was done on PubMed from 2016 on neuromodulation in under-developed countries (UDCs) by non-invasive brain stimulation methods, using the key words “stroke”, “rehabilitation”, and “tDCS”. Results: We first identified articles and websites, of which were further selected for extensive analysis mainly based on clinical relevance, study quality and reliability, and date of publication. Conclusion: Despite the promising results obtained with tDCS in basic and clinical neuroscience, further progress has been impeded by a lack of clarity to use in mostly UDCs