Efficacy and Safety of Deep Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation for Major Depression
The article is about a report of the efficacy, and safety of deep repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) as a remedy for the Major Depression Disorder. The research explored the use of prospective multicenter randomized controlled trials. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation encompasses the passing of the electric current on a coil that is positioned on the scalp to induce an electric field on the cortex using the Brainsway TMS system. The induction of electric field leads to the alteration of the electric current as well as magnetic field. In return, the electrical field causes a change in the activity of the neural at the site where stimulation occurs and within the interconnected networks of the neutrals, thereby producing repetitive trains of the TMS pulse (Yechiel et al., 2015).
The subjects for the study were recruited by the advertisements through the public media and referrals by the physicians. Potential subjects were required to sign a consent document in advance. The subjects were individuals between the ages of 22-68 that are not involved in antidepressant medication. Furthermore, the subjects were to score at least four and 21 items in Clinical Global Impression (CGIS) and Hamilton Depression Rating Scale respectively (HDRS-21). The study was performed in twenty centers from four different countries, such as U.S, Israel, Germany, and Canada between 2009 and 2012 (Yechiel et al., 2015).
The subjects were given at random in the ratio of 1:1 as either active dTMS or sham TMS by the help of the interactive web response system. However, stratification was based on either the disease severity as per the scores of the HDRS-21 and resistance levels of the ATHF. Out of the potential 900 participants, only 233 subjects were selected for the study as opposed to other methods of treating major depression disorders, rTMS is very safe because the subjects did not complain about any notable side effects. However, some subjects complained of seizers and clustered headache, which were later discovered to be because of too much alcohol consumption. There were several limitations of rTMS, such as inability to treat psychotic depression and elevation of an individual motor threshold in order to respond to the treatment (Yechiel et al., 2015).
Reference
Yechiel, L. et al. (2015). Efficacy and Safety of Deep Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation for major depression: Prospective multicenter randomized controlled trials. World Psychiatry,14(1), 64-73.