Study Background

Why are we doing this study?

Bipolar is a prevalent and disabling disorder.  

The most common treatments are mood stabilising or antipsychotic medications and talking therapies.  

However, after a full course of treatment with antidepressant medication or psychotherapy, over one third continue to be unwell.  

As well, for many individuals, they would prefer to not take mood stabilising or antipsychotic medications or be involved in a talking therapy.   

Could I be experiencing bipolar depression?

Individuals with bipolar depression may experience:

  • Feeling sad or down or not enjoying things that they used to

  • Changes in appetite

  • Trouble sleeping

  • Lack of energy

  • Feeling hopeless or thinking about death or suicide

These changes may have lasted for a couple of weeks and are in combination with at least one manic or hypomanic episode.

More information on bipolar disorder is available on the NHS website:

NHS - Symptoms of Bipolar Disorder in Adults

What evidence is there for transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)?

Studies have shown that transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) could be a possible treatment for bipolar depression.

We and other researchers have carried out large reviews of many studies, called meta-analysis, to look at the overall effect of tDCS in depression. These studies show that people who receive active tDCS often show more improvement in their depression than those who receive inactive tDCS (Mutz et al., 2018, 2019).

In our clinical trial in unipolar depression, we looked at providing tDCS at home, and we found that people using home-based tDCS were more likely to show an improvement in their depressive symptoms with active tDCS than with inactive tDCS (Woodham et al., 2025). 

In our preliminary study in bipolar depression, we found that people likes using the device at home and that their depressive symptoms improved with active tDCS (Ghazi-Noori et al., 2024)

Now we would like to see how helpful the tDCS treatment is for bipolar depression by comparing the improvement in depressive symptoms after a course of either active or inactive tDCS treatment.