Background: Intermittent theta burst stimulation (iTBS), a patterned form of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), has gained increasing attention as a time-efficient neuromodulation protocol for major depressive disorder (MDD). However, its clinical effectiveness in individuals with co-occurring depression and anxiety remains insufficiently characterized. This systematic review aimed to evaluate clinical outcomes, including depressive and anxiety symptom severity, response, and remission, following rTMS in individuals with major depressive disorder and elevated anxiety symptoms. The primary outcome was the reduction of depressive and anxiety symptoms, while secondary outcomes included response and remission rates, adverse events, and potential predictors of treatment response. Methods: A systematic search was performed following the PRISMA guidelines in the following databases: PubMed, Scopus, Embase, PsycInfo, Web of Science, Elsevier, Google Scholar. The protocol was registered in PROSPERO (CRD420251117784). Six studies that met the inclusion criteria were selected as eligible; these included one randomized controlled trial, one controlled clinical trial, three open-label studies, and one retrospective study on iTBS alone or compared to conventional 10 Hz rTMS or pharmacotherapy. iTBS has demonstrated safety and efficacy in reducing depressive and anxiety symptoms. The response rate ranged between 30 and 60%, and the remission rate between 10 and 40%. Regarding comparative findings, the results are mixed, with some studies showing superior or comparable improvements to 10 Hz rTMS and others reporting no significant differences. Reported treatment outcomes were largely influenced by age, baseline severity, medication status, and comorbid anxiety. Antipsychotics, anticonvulsants, and benzodiazepines were associated with attenuated clinical benefit, and bupropion use was associated with increased response. Conclusions: Current evidence supports iTBS as an effective, well-tolerated, and time-efficient intervention for adults with depression and comorbid anxiety. However, variability in treatment outcomes and limited mechanistic data highlight the need for larger, harmonized, and mechanistically informed randomized trials to refine stimulation parameters, improve patient stratification, and clarify the neurobiological substrates of treatment response.

Background/Objectives: Deception engages both emotional and cognitive processes, yet individual variability in these responses remains insufficiently understood. This study aimed to investigate how personality traits, perceived stress, and empathic distress shape psychophysiological and neurobiological responses during deception and emotional processing. Methods: Thirty healthy young adults completed a protocol combining a deception task with emotional stimulus exposure, while heart rate (HR), heart rate variability (HRV), and electroencephalographic (EEG) activity were continuously recorded. Participants were characterized using measures of Dark Triad traits, perceived stress (PSS-10), and empathic distress. Results: The results showed increased HR and reduced HRV during deceptive responses, reflecting heightened cognitive effort and autonomic arousal. In contrast, morally or socially evaluative stimuli were associated with right-frontal EEG asymmetry, suggesting engagement of emotional regulation processes. Cluster analysis revealed distinct reactivity profiles: individuals with high stress and empathic distress exhibited amplified autonomic activation and reduced cortical inhibition, whereas those with higher Machiavellianism and psychopathy displayed attenuated HR/HRV modulation and stable EEG patterns, suggestive of emotional detachment and adaptive inhibition. These findings suggest that deception is a dynamic, context-dependent process influenced by individual personality traits and stress-regulation capacities. Conclusions: The study offers valuable insights into the psychophysiological mechanisms underlying deceptive behavior, with meaningful implications for both forensic and affective neuroscience.

Major depressive disorder (MDD), one of the most prevalent and debilitating mental health conditions, is found to have the highest rates of treatment resistance and recurrence. The current therapeutic approach is primarily based on pharmacological and psychotherapeutic interventions, which fail to achieve complete remission for a significant part of the patients. New interest is emerging in combining pharmacological treatments with neuromodulation and environmental improvements to enhance therapeutic outcomes in this context. This one-year longitudinal study investigated the individual and combined effects of social isolation, chronic restraint stress, sertraline administration, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), and social rehabilitation on depression-like behaviours in male Sprague Dawley rats. Behavioural outcomes were assessed using the Open Field Test, Sucrose Preference Test, Elevated Plus Maze, and Novel Object Recognition Test across ten experimental phases. Social isolation and chronic restraint effectively induced depression-like behaviours, as indicated by reduced exploration and sucrose preference. Sertraline treatment yielded partial improvements in affective and motivational behaviour, though inter-individual variability was notable. The addition of tDCS produced more consistent behavioural benefits and appeared to stabilise recovery trajectories. Social rehabilitation also contributed to behavioural improvement but was influenced by prior treatment history. Depression treatment usually has a high risk of relapse, so continuous interventions and individualised strategies are needed to increase the chance of effective treatment. Our findings support a multimodal approach to depression treatment, where combining pharmacological, neuromodulatory, and environmental interventions offers more significant potential for recovery than single treatments alone. These results underscore the complexity of depressive disorders and the need for long-term, personalised therapeutic strategies.

Background/Objectives: Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) has proven to be a promising intervention for major depressive disorder (MDD). Even so, the specific neurophysiological mechanisms underlying its therapeutic effects, particularly regarding frontal EEG markers, remain insufficiently understood. This pilot study investigated both the clinical efficacy and neurophysiological impact of frontal tDCS in individuals with mild to severe depression, with particular focus on mood changes and alterations in Frontal Alpha Asymmetry (FAA), Beta Symmetry, and Theta/Alpha Ratios at the F3 and F4 electrode sites. Methods: A total of thirty–one participants were enrolled and completed a standardized Flow Neuroscience tDCS protocol targeting the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex using a bilateral F3/F4 montage. The intervention included an active phase of five stimulations per week for three weeks, followed by a Strengthening Phase with two stimulations per week. Clinical outcomes were assessed using the Montgomery–Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS), while neurophysiological changes were evaluated via standardized quantitative EEG (QEEG) recordings obtained before and after the treatment course. Among the participants, fourteen individuals had a baseline MADRS score of ≥20, indicating moderate to severe depressive symptoms. Results: Following tDCS treatment, significant reductions in MADRS scores were observed across the cohort, with clinical response rates notably higher in the moderate/severe group (71.4%) compared to the mild depression group (20.0%). Neurophysiological effects were modest: no significant changes were detected in FAA or Beta Symmetry measures. However, a substantial reduction in the Theta/Alpha Ratio at F4 was found in participants with moderate to severe depression (p = 0.018, Cohen’s d = −0.72), suggesting enhanced frontal cortical activation associated with clinical improvement. Conclusions: These findings indicate that frontal tDCS is effective in reducing depressive symptoms, particularly in cases of moderate to severe depression. While improvements in FAA and Beta Symmetry were not significant, changes in the Theta/Alpha Ratio at F4 point toward dynamic neurophysiological reorganization potentially linked to therapeutic outcomes. The Theta/Alpha Ratio may serve as a promising biomarker for tracking tDCS response, whereas other EEG metrics might represent more stable trait characteristics. Future research should prioritize individualized stimulation protocols and incorporate more sensitive neurophysiological assessments, including functional connectivity analyses and task-evoked EEG paradigms, to understand the mechanisms underlying clinical improvements.

Stress has become an unavoidable part of daily life, shaping both behavioural and neural responses. This study investigated how fear conditioning influences defensive behaviour in rats, integrating standardiszed behavioural paradigms with prefrontal EEG monitoring. Twenty male Sprague Dawley rats were evaluated pre- and post-conditioning using Open Field, Elevated Plus Maze, Forced Swim, and Novel Object Recognition tasks. Fear conditioning produced a significant increase in anxiety and depression indicators, with conditioned rats spending less time in the open arms of the maze and more time immobile during forced swim testing. No significant differences emerged in exploratory or cognitive performance. EEG analyses revealed no global differences in prefrontal cortical activity between pre- and post-conditioning states. However, significant increases across all frequency bands were observed during freezing episodes, indicating a state-dependent modulation of prefrontal activity linked to defensive mechanisms. These findings suggest that aversive conditioning selectively impacts emotional and defensive domains rather than cognitive performance, with freezing behaviour reflecting a neurophysiological signature of adaptive coping strategies.

Intentional deceptive responding under laboratory instructions provides an experimental model for investigating the cognitive mechanisms involved in producing false responses, although it does not fully capture the complexity of real-world deception. Although deception has important implications for social functioning and has been widely studied, identifying reliable indicators that cannot easily be concealed remains a major challenge. In the present study, we investigated frontal EEG activity during intentional instructed deception and examined its association with stress-related and affective traits. The study included 86 healthy adults (M age = 26.97 years, SD = 9.42) who completed standardized self-report measures assessing depression (BDI), anxiety (BAI), perceived stress (PSS), and everyday deceptive behavior (LiES). A subsample of 48 participants subsequently completed a controlled truth–deception task while EEG activity was recorded from frontal scalp electrodes, providing an indirect measure of frontal electrophysiological activity. Absolute spectral power was analyzed across beta, alpha, theta, and delta frequency bands. The findings indicated that anxiety was positively associated with self-reported deceptive behavior, whereas depression and perceived stress were not significantly related to deception tendencies. EEG analyses suggested an increase in right-frontal scalp theta power during instructed deceptive responding, particularly through significant modulation of theta activity in the right hemisphere; however, later multilevel analysis showed it is a rather less specific activation appearing irrespective of the hemisphere. The increase remained significant when relative power was analyzed, indicating that the finding was robust to normalization of spectral power. Together, these findings suggest that instructed deceptive responding was associated with changes in frontal EEG oscillatory activity that are broadly consistent with mechanisms previously linked to executive control and conflict monitoring; however, because recordings were obtained using a low-density consumer EEG device during overt verbal responding, these interpretations should be considered exploratory. In this view, our study investigates habitual deceptive tendencies with affective traits and state-dependent EEG modulation during instructed deception, and our results could contribute to the understanding of emotion–cognition interactions in decisions involving uncertainty, social evaluation, and strategic information control.