The study also is the first to evaluate rTMS in older patients with depression. Emory researchers William McDonald, M.D., assistant professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and Charles Epstein, M.D., associate professor of Neurology, currently are recruiting participants for further rTMS studies. Candidates should have depression that has not responded well to conventional treatment. The coil is not an ordinary magnet. The regimen was repeated in each study subject on an outpatient basis for five consecutive weekdays.
Patients sit or lie down during the short procedure and require no anesthesia nor sedation.
Most feel mild tightening of the scalp muscles, and a small percentage report headaches that end as soon as stimulation ends. Both seem to positively influence brain function through nerve cell stimulation, though the precise antidepressant mechanism of action of the therapies is unknown. Approximately one in five people will have a serious episode of depression during their lifetime, yet 20 percent of depressed patients will have little or no response to medication and an additional 20 to 30 percent will respond only partially to medication. Rapid rate TMS appears to benefit some patients in whom medication has been ineffective. Patients in these preliminary studies who were older and had the onset of their depression early in life responded to rTMS at three times the rate of the older patients with late-onset depression.