Monday, May 17, 2010

Magnetic Brain Stimulation Fights Depression

By Anne Harding / Source: Reuters Health

A daily dose of electricity delivered to a specific part of the brain can lift depression, new research confirms, even for people who've already tried multiple antidepressants to no avail.

While there's evidence that this technique, known as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), helps depressed people get better-and the US Food and Drug Administration has approved TMS for this purpose-many skeptics have questioned whether it really works, notes Dr. Mark S. George of the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, the lead author of the new study.


The biggest issue with studies so far, he explained, has been that it's tough to fake the sound and sensation of the real device in order to run a gold standard clinical trial in which some people get the treatment, and others get a sham treatment, no one knowing which.


But George and his team say they've solved that problem by developing a dummy device that clicks in a similar way to the real thing and causes a person's eye muscles to twitch, just like real a TMS device.


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