Zafiris Daskalakis
University of California-San Diego, CA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Many people with depression do not get better with standard medications, and even those helped by brain stimulation often relapse once treatment stops. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) uses magnetic pulses applied through the scalp to change activity in targeted brain regions.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Neuroscience
Psychology
- Topics
treatment-resistant depression
repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation
rTMS
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Mar 2027
What they work on
- Compare standard, clustered and sham maintenance rTMS over six months in 75 adults with treatment-resistant depression, testing which best sustains connectivity between the DLPFC and SGC measured by TMS-EEG.
- Track depressive symptoms with the MADRS rating scale during maintenance treatment as a secondary outcome, and relate symptom changes to brain connectivity.
- Test in a 144-patient double-blind trial whether the better maintenance rTMS schedule keeps depression symptoms under control longer than sham stimulation.
- Evaluate DLPFC-SGC connectivity as a biomarker of maintenance treatment response that could guide which patients receive ongoing rTMS.
More about the research
It can relieve treatment-resistant depression (TRD), but it is still unclear whether continuing stimulation afterward, called maintenance treatment, keeps patients well, and which schedule works best.
Why it matters
Patients with treatment-resistant depression who improve with rTMS face a high risk of relapse. This trial could show whether ongoing stimulation keeps symptoms away and which schedule works best. It could also give clinicians a brain-connectivity marker, measured with TMS-EEG, to help choose which patients should receive maintenance treatment.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Desmond Oathes
University of Pennsylvania, PA·Neuroscience
Establish that TMS targeted with resting-state fMRI connectivity modulates the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sgACC), a deep mood-related region, using interleaved TMS/fMRI to record brain responses to stimulation.
Charles Lewis
University of Minnesota, MN·Neuroscience·Early-career
Test whether dysregulated cortical inhibition, the damping of circuit activity by cortical interneurons, is associated with negative urgency, the tendency to act rashly under negative emotion, in depressed adolescents.
L Elliot Hong
University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, TX·Neuroscience
Test whether 16 weeks of family-based risk reduction therapy normalizes an MRI-based biomarker of schizophrenia-like brain patterns in children aged 9–18 with family risk but no psychotic symptoms.
The school
University of California-San Diego: 84 labs on PI Pages, $1.9B a year on research, 637 research doctorates a year.
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