Neurostimulation therapies are physical interventions that treat psychiatric disorders through delivery of electric current or magnetic eld.

The following four types of neurostimulation therapies are currently used in psychiatry:

1. Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) 2. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation

(rTMS) 3. Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) 4. Deep brain stimulation (DBS)

The following are key historical points in the development of ECT:

• During the early twentieth century, it was hypothesized that schizophrenia and epilepsy are more or less mutually exclusive disorders.