Using Rapid-Acting Brain Stimulation for Treatment-Resistant Depression

Each month The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation hosts a Meet the Scientist Webinar featuring a researcher discussing the latest findings related to mental illness. In May, 2021, the Foundation featured Dr. Nolan R. Williams of Stanford University Medical Center.


Description: There is a widely acknowledged need for new, effective antidepressant treatments. Past research has demonstrated that a form of FDA-approved non-invasive brain stimulation called rTMS could be optimized to better treat depression as well as other psychiatric disorders. Our team has tested the hypothesis that the effectiveness of rTMS could be enhanced with a new treatment protocol involving multiple non-invasive brain-stimulation sessions at spaced intervals throughout the day delivered over the course of five consecutive days, providing patients with significantly more total stimulation, and targeted individually in each patient based on brain scans obtained prior to the start of treatments. We recently completed a randomized controlled trial to determine the antidepressant response of this novel protocol, called SAINT. As I will report in the webinar, we found that it had a profound and rapid effect in patients with treatment-resistant depression.

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