Fig. 2: Clinical outcome measures.
Depressive symptoms were measured by the Montgomery–Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (A), Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (B), and Beck Depression Inventory (C) before the intervention, at weeks 2 (session 10), 4 (session 20), 6 (session 30), and up to one- and three-month follow-up. In the left panel, filled symbols indicate significant differences at each time point compared to baseline. Floating squares indicate significant differences vs sham tDCS at each timepoint with color denoting to the active group (here red for multichannel tDCS). Asterisks show the difference between the multichannel vs conventional tDCS groups at respective time points. The middle panel displays a scatter plot of clinical scores for each group across time points. The right panel shows the mean score change from the baseline to the study endpoint (week 6) for the respective measure. Floating squares in each arm indicate significant difference with other color-coded arms. The horizontal bar shows the median, the + shows the mean, the upper and lower boundaries show the 25th and 75th percentiles, respectively, and the whiskers show 1–99 percentiles. All pairwise comparisons are conducted with Bonferroni‑corrected multiple comparisons test, and error bars indicate the standard error of the mean (s.e.m.). Note: HDRS Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, MADRS Montgomery–Åsberg Depression Rating Scale, BDI-II Beck Depression Inventory-II, tDCS transcranial direct current stimulation, mo month.
