This study provides prospective validation that functional connectivity between an individual's rTMS cortical target and the subgenual cingulate predicts antidepressant response. Implications for improving the cortical rTMS target for depression are discussed.

BackgroundThe dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) is a common target for repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) in major depression, but the conventional “5 cm rule” misses DLPFC in > 1/3 cases. Another heuristic, BeamF3, locates the F3 EEG site from scalp measurements. MRI-guided neuronavigation is more onerous, but can target a specific DLPFC stereotaxic coordinate directly. The concordance between these two approaches has not previously been assessed.ObjectiveTo quantify the discrepancy in scalp site between BeamF3 versus MRI-guided neuronavigation for left DLPFC.MethodsUsing 100 pre-treatment MRIs from subjects undergoing left DLPFC-rTMS, we localized the scalp site at minimum Euclidean distance from a target MNI coordinate (X − 38 Y + 44 Z + 26) derived from our previous work. We performed nasion-inion, tragus–tragus, and head-circumference measurements on the same subjects’ MRIs, and applied the BeamF3 heuristic. We then compared the distance between BeamF3 and MRI-guided scalp sites.ResultsBeamF3-to-MRI-guided discrepancies were <0.65 cm in 50% of subjects, <0.99 cm in 75% of subjects, and <1.36 cm in 95% of subjects. The angle from midline to the scalp site did not differ significantly using MRI-guided versus BeamF3 methods. However, the length of the radial arc from vertex to target site was slightly but significantly longer (mean 0.35 cm) with MRI-guidance versus BeamF3.ConclusionsThe BeamF3 heuristic may provide a reasonable approximation to MRI-guided neuronavigation for locating left DLPFC in a majority of subjects. A minor optimization of the heuristic may yield additional concordance.

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