Zapping away sadness? new device aims to treat depression without drugs

Copied word for word from the study's registry entry, so the wording is the study team's rather than ours.

Inclusion Criteria: 1. Aged 18-50 years old, right-handed, and completed nine years of compulsory education; 2. Met Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) diagnostic criteria for depression; 3. HAMD-17≥18; 4. Subject was a first-time medication-naïve patient or had previously used antidepressant medication and was currently off medication for ≥2 weeks; 5. The subject/ legal guardian is willing to actively cooperate with the treatment and sign an informed consent form after fully understanding the temporal interference stimulus (TI). Exclusion Criteria: 1. Co-morbid other psychiatric disorders, including bipolar disorder, affective psychiatric disorders, anxiety spectrum disorders, mental retardation, substance dependence (abuse), etc.; 2. Severe suicidal ideation or behavior; 3. History of a serious physical illness or a disease that may affect the central nervous system; 4. Neurologic disorders or risk of seizures such as previous cranial disorders, head trauma, abnormal electroencephalograms, magnetic resonance evidence of structural brain abnormalities, or a family history of epilepsy; 5. Contraindications to magnetic resonance scanning or time-interference stimulation (TI), such as the presence of metallic or electronic devices in the body (intracranial metallic foreign bodies, cochlear implants, pacemakers and stents, and other metallic foreign bodies); 6. Those who have received or are receiving electroconvulsive therapy (ECT ), modified electroconvulsive therapy (MECT ), transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS), or other neurostimulation treatments; 7. Pregnant and lactating women, and women of childbearing age with positive urine pregnancy.