Overview
- The study, published Tuesday in JAMA Network Open, found that adding MRI-guided, robot-controlled transcranial magnetic stimulation to intensive psychotherapy produced clinically significant improvement in 85% of participants after one month.
- A sham-controlled comparison showed 59% improved with the mock procedure at one month, while 73% in the active group remained improved at three months compared with fewer than 30% in the sham group.
- Researchers randomized 119 active-duty service members and veterans with mostly severe combat-related PTSD during a 30-day residential program at Laurel Ridge Treatment Center in San Antonio.
- The patented system used each person’s MRI to pinpoint the target in the brain and a robot to keep the magnet on that spot, in what authors report as the first registered clinical trial of image-guided robotic TMS.
- TMS is cleared by the FDA for depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder but not PTSD, and the team said new trials are being designed to test this approach in other settings and groups.