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(48) Neuromodulation for Restless Legs Syndrome: PRISMA Systematic Review and Mechanistic Considerations for Spinal Cord Stimulation

Friday, June 13, 2025
4:30 PM - 5:10 PM ET
Location: Sky View
Introduction: Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is a common sleep disorder characterized by an irresistible urge to move the legs. Symptoms predominate the evening and cause significant circadian rhythm interruptions that impact sleep and quality of life, leading to decreased work productivity, anxiety, and depression. Some patients improve with oral medications, but many experience treatment refractory symptoms, whether from lack of efficacy or intolerable cognitive or behavioral side effects. Emerging evidence suggests that diverse neuromodulation modalities could provide a novel circuit-based therapy option for patients with treatment refractory RLS. Given its prevalence, most of these reports arise as serendipitous observations of improved RLS symptoms when it is co-morbid with an approved indication for neuromodulation such as chronic neuropathic pain or a movement disorder. More recent work has begun investigating neuromodulation for primary idiopathic RLS.

Methods: Here we performed a PRISMA systematic review and identified 120 articles utilizing spinal cord stimulation, deep brain stimulation, transcranial magnetic stimulation, vagal nerve stimulation, and other modalities.

Results: Among these, we summarize findings from 54 studies that met Covidence criteria and suggest potential mechanisms for neuromodulation of RLS symptoms. Interestingly, the amount and duration of RLS improvement seems to correlate with the invasiveness of the neuromodulation modality. Whether these findings relate to greater efficacy or placebo effects remains unclear.

Conclusion: Prospective, multi-institutional trials are needed to evaluate whether various neuromodulation strategies can impact debilitating symptoms from treatment refractory RLS.