Improvement of depression following transcranial magnetic stimulation

Abstract

Psychiatry as a field was transformed by the discovery and introduction of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) as a treatment in the early part of this century. ECT demonstrated that depression was a disease of the brain and that it could be treated with a direct brain intervention. Psychiatry's evolution continued in 1958 with the discovery of the antidepressant activity of the monoamine oxidase inhibitors. Interestingly, although the area of neuropsychopharmacology has continued to advance, the realm of physical somatic interventions in psychiatry has lagged behind. With perhaps the exception of light therapy, there were no advances in somatic interventions in psychiatry. However, in 1985, Barker et al. developed a brief high intensity electromagnet capable of depolarizing cortical neurons, called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). There has been much interest in the past 10 years in whether TMS might have antidepressant actions, similar to ECT but without causing a seizure and with no apparent cognitive side effects. This review examines the basic principles underlying TMS, and describes how TMS differs from electrical stimulation and the other uses of magnets.

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation for Chronic Pain

“…Since then TMS has been evaluated for refractory depression, chronic pain, neuropathic pain, schizophrenia, and obsessive compulsive disorders, with varied success. 15,16,[22][23][24] TMS involves generation of action potentials with either activation or inhibition of various cortical and subcortical neural networks by generating a magnetic field that penetrates the skull of the patient. High-frequency rTMS of the M1 has been shown to induce rapid changes and modulation of the sensorimotor networks in healthy individuals.…”

A Symptom-Specific Analysis of the Effect of High-Frequency Left or Low-Frequency Right Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation over the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex in Major Depression

“…Several studies have investigated the efficacy of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) in major depression, showing a better response to active stimulation when compared to sham stimulation [1][2][3][4] . In particular, high-frequency left (HFL) [5][6][7][8][9] and low-frequency right (LFR; ^ 1 Hz) [10][11][12] rTMS on the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) have been shown to be effective in the treatment of major depression [13,14] .…”

Impact of low frequency transcranial magnetic stimulation on event-related brain potentials

“…Since the last 10 years, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has emerged as a very interesting method either as a therapeutic procedure or as a unique investigating tool to assess the relationship between cortical activity and cognitive processes (Daskalakis et al, 2002;George et al, 1999;Jahanshahi and Rothwell, 2000;PascualLeone et al, 1999aPascualLeone et al, ,b, 2000.…”