Depression affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide and is expected to become an even greater public health challenge over the coming decades.
While many patients improve with antidepressants, counselling, or a combination of both, others continue to struggle despite receiving appropriate treatment. Scientists are therefore developing new therapies that target the brain directly rather than relying only on medicines.
One of these newer treatments is intermittent theta-burst stimulation, known as iTBS. It is a form of magnetic brain stimulation related to repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation but delivered in much shorter sessions.
Magnetic pulses are aimed at brain regions involved in mood, with the goal of improving communication between nerve cells.
Researchers recently tested whether a commonly used schedule of ten daily iTBS sessions worked better than placebo. Their findings, published in JAMA Network Open, included 73 adults with major depressive disorder attending an outpatient clinic in Norway.
Participants were randomly divided into two groups. One group received real magnetic stimulation, while the other underwent a convincing placebo procedure using a special coil that produced similar sounds and scalp sensations without stimulating the brain. Neither group knew which treatment they were receiving.
By the fifth treatment session, doctors observed greater improvement in patients receiving real iTBS. After ten sessions, the difference remained, with the active treatment reducing clinician-rated depression symptoms almost twice as much as placebo. These early improvements suggest the therapy may work relatively quickly.
The longer-term results were less impressive. When participants returned one month later, those in the placebo group had continued improving until the difference between the two groups disappeared. Self-reported depression scores also showed little difference between active treatment and placebo.
Researchers believe the treatment itself may still be beneficial, but the standard ten-session program could simply be too short. Extending treatment or adding maintenance sessions may help preserve the early improvements seen with brain stimulation.
If you care about health, please read studies about how dairy foods may influence depression risk, and B vitamins could help prevent depression and anxiety.
For more health information, please see recent studies that ultra-processed foods may make you feel depressed, and extra-virgin olive oil could reduce depression symptoms.
Source: JAMA Network Open study.
