LAUSR

The advent of psychotropic medications over half of a century ago heralded a sea change in the treatment of psychiatric illness. Psychopharmacologic and psychotherapeutic interventions have improved outcomes for millions of patients. However, despite this armamentarium of treatments, many patients do not achieve adequate benefit from these interventions. The brain is an electrochemical organ. While the “chemical” properties of the brain have been leveraged via psychopharmacology, we have barely scratched the surface in exploitating the “electrical” properties of the brain for therapeutic benefit. Neurotherapeutics are defined as interventions using surgery or a device for psychiatric illness. These interventions are circuit based and utilize the electrical properties of the brain as their mechanism of action. Until relatively recently, only electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has been commonly used to treat psychiatric illness. In the past decades, however, a growing number of neurotherapeutic interventions have been studied as potential treatments for psychiatric illness. In this review, we will describe these interventions and discuss future directions in the field.