Accelerated TMS in Autism Spectrum Disorder with Depression
Hopeful news in for young people who are often left out!
One of the more important questions in the world of transcranial magnetic stimulation has been the treatment of individuals who have more than just depression. I'm a child psychiatrist, so a lot of the individuals who come to see me have autistic spectrum disorders—this is true for adults Psychiatrist also. Still, as child psychiatrists, we have more experience making this diagnosis.
Differences have been noted in the cortical excitability—how easy it is to make neurons to fire—between autistic and non-autistic individuals. However, the exact mechanisms of this and how much this mattered were not clear:
[a] systematic review showed that short-interval intracortical inhibition was likely to be reduced in individuals with ASD compared with controls with mild to moderate effect size, whereas there was no difference in motor-evoked potentials (with single-pulse TMS stimulation—ED) amplitude between the two groups.1
I've had years of not knowing what to do and to what degree TMS might be help…