Somatic Symptom Disorder: Clinical Approach and Neurobiology
摘要
Somatic Symptom Disorder is a chronic disabling condition characterized by the presence of at least one physical somatic symptom causing significant impairment of daily activities. Despite its high prevalence and burden on the healthcare system, management options for the disorder remain limited to psychopharmacological interventions with low to moderate effect sizes. This leaves a huge treatment gap for a disorder that costs millions of dollars, increased utilization of healthcare services, and significant disability among patients. Noninvasive brain stimulation interventions offer an attractive alternative to current treatment options. Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, which has offered promising results in major depression, is a noninvasive therapeutic stimulation utilizing electromagnetic pulses to modulate the activity of neurons. While the current evidence on the effectiveness and safety of TMS in SSD is limited to case series and reports targeting the prefrontal cortex, it provides encouraging results for conducting further robust clinical trials adding to the pool of options available to clinicians.