Depression is a challenging mental health condition that requires treatment and help to reduce or eliminate the symptoms. With treatment, you can improve your quality of life and once again enjoy your family and friends, relationships, and activities you previously found exciting and entertaining.
The first treatment option for depression is typically antidepressant medication, but these medications do not work for many people. When you have tried two or three different medications without symptom relief, the diagnosis is treatment-resistant depression. We want you to know there is hope. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is highly effective in people with treatment-resistant depression. Knowing the science behind TMS and depression can help you feel more comfortable about the treatment process.
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a non-invasive treatment that uses electromagnetic fields to stimulate the areas of your brain that are responsible for mood and mood disorders. The treatment is non-invasive because the skin is not broken, although the magnetic fields can penetrate the skull in two to three centimeters.
NeuroStar TMS therapy uses a cushioned coil placed against your head to deliver magnetic pulses to the identified targeted areas. Before your first session, we will measure your motor threshold. This threshold identifies the intensity of the electromagnetic pulses that will be used to treat your depression.
NeuroStar TMS therapy requires one 30 to 40-minute session, five days per week, for six to seven weeks. Although this requires a significant time commitment of roughly six weeks, it does not require anesthesia or sedation, so you can go about your daily activities as soon as the session is complete.
NeuroStar TMS works differently than medication because it targets one area of the brain and does not affect the whole body. Medications cause systemic changes because they affect every cell in your body, which can lead to side effects like nausea, weight gain, drowsiness, constipation, blurred vision, confusion, difficulty urinating, insomnia, anxiety, and erectile dysfunction.
NeuroStar TMS works on a targeted brain area to increase activity and challenge neuroconnectivity. Image studies have shown that areas of the brain responsible for mood disorders are less active in people with depression than in people without depression. After receiving treatment and reducing or eliminating symptoms, follow-up studies demonstrate increased activity.
NeuroStar TMS therapy changes the firing patterns in your brain neurons. This can alter dysfunctional patterns that have been identified with depression. The pulses induce small electric currents that researchers believe release neurotransmitters like norepinephrine and serotonin. TMS may help restore balance in these neurotransmitters. The electromagnetic stimulation of the brain can also help improve neuroplasticity, also called brain plasticity.
Brain plasticity is the brain’s ability to change and adapt in response to stimulation such as an experience, new information, or an electromagnetic pulse. Your capacity for brain plasticity allows the neurons to reorganize by forming new connections throughout life.
Neuroplasticity can occur at the cellular level or on a larger scale of cortical remapping. NeuroStar TMS helps address structural plasticity, during which the brain adapts to the stimulation of the electromagnetic pulses.
Brain plasticity increases your ability to learn new information and adapt to new environments. A child’s brain has a greater capacity for plasticity and neuroconnectivity than an adult, but an adult does not lose that capacity entirely. NeuroStar TMS therapy helps increase the brain’s ability to adapt and reduces or eliminates symptoms of depression. Other strategies that improve neuroplasticity are exercise, puzzles, learning a new language, or adapting to new environments.
Treatment-resistant depression is challenging and may increase your symptoms of depression. We want you to know there is hope, and many people have found significant relief or elimination of their symptoms of depression using NeuroStar TMS therapy.
We encourage you to call our office today and schedule your consultation so you can learn more about the science behind TMS and depression and discover how this simple, safe, and effective therapeutic technique can make a big difference in your life.
Call (310) 246-9110