Depression and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

Doctor Abraham Zangen discusses a treatment developed by his group that uses transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to treat depression.

So what we have developed is a method in which instead of stimulating the whole brain like with ECT where there are some side effects like memory loss, we only stimulate the relevant areas in the brain that are related to the disease – the depression – or the increments in the reward system by localized electrodes in animals and animal models. We study how repeated stimulations of only very focal regions of the reward system affect the behavior and change the neurochemistry associated with depression. In humans we translate it by doing transcranial magnetic stimulation using alternating magnetic fields, which actually produces electric fields like an inserted electrode that focuses on regions that are again associated with the impairment in depression and therefore without inducing all the side effects, the cognitive side effects of the ECT. We can induce the same therapeutic effects in terms of high percentages of remission even in patients that suffer from depression.