About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Why it's done
By Mayo Clinic staffDepression is a treatable condition, but sometimes standard treatments aren't effective. Transcranial magnetic stimulation may be used when standard treatments such as medications and psychotherapy don't work. However, more research is needed to determine how well it works to relieve depression symptoms and in whom it may be most effective.
How it works
How transcranial magnetic stimulation helps relieve depression is not completely understood. It's thought that magnetic pulses stimulate nerve cells in the region of your brain involved in mood control. This stimulation appears to alter how this part of the brain is working, which in turn seems to ease depression symptoms and improve mood.
- Padberg F, et al. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation of the prefrontal cortex in depression. Experimental Neurology. 2009;219:2.
- Kim D, et al. Transcranial magnetic stimulation in the treatment of psychiatric disorders. Current Psychiatry Reports. 2009;11:447.
- Loo CK, et al. A review of the safety of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation as a clinical treatment for depression. International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology. 2008;11:131.
- George MS, et al. Nonpharmacological somatic treatments. In: Hales RE, et al. The American Psychiatric Publishing Textbook of Psychiatry. 5th ed. Arlington, Va.: American Psychiatric Publishing; 2008. http://www.psychiatryonline.com/content.aspx?aid=338825. Accessed June 21, 2010.
- Barbara Woodward Lips Patient Education Center. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Rochester, Minn.: Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research; 2009.
- Rossini, Paolo M, et al. Transcranial magnetic stimulation: Diagnostic, therapeutic, and research potential. Neurology. 2007;68:484.
- Fitzgerald, Paul B, et al. The use of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation and vagal nerve stimulation in the treatment of depression. Current Opinion in Psychiatry. 2008;21:25.
Find Mayo Clinic on