Magnetic Stimulation Scores Modest Success as Antidepressant

[The Straight Story]

Magnetic Stimulation Scores Modest Success as Antidepressant

ScienceDaily (May 4, 2010) — Some depressed patients who don't respond to or tolerate antidepressant medications may benefit from a non-invasive treatment that stimulates the brain with a pulsing electromagnet, a study suggests. This first industry-independent, multi-site, randomized, tightly controlled trial of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) found that it produced significant antidepressant effects in a subgroup of patients, with few side effects.

Active rTMS treatment accounted for remissions in 14 percent of antidepressant-resistant patients actively treated, compared to about 5 percent for a simulated treatment.

"Although rTMS treatment has not yet lived up to early hopes that it might replace more invasive therapies, this study suggests that the treatment may be effective in at least some treatment-resistant patients," said Thomas R. Insel, M.D., director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), part of the National Institutes of Health, which funded the study.

Mark George, M.D., of the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston; Harold Sackeim, Ph.D., and Sarah Lisanby, M.D., of Columbia University, New York City; David Avery, M.D., of the University of Washington, Seattle; William McDonald, M.D., of Emory University, Atlanta; and colleagues, report on their findings in the May 2009 issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100503161233.htm

[hedgehog]

1. It's a kinder, gentler version of electroconvulsive therapy

Not to say that that's a bad thing. ECT can be very effective for depression, but it has a bad reputation and can cause memory loss. My wild ass speculation is that maybe ECT works by causing a secondary magnetic pulse across the brain. If so, rTMS would be a more direct path to treatment.