Author: Choi KM1,2,3,4, Choi SH5, Lee SM2,3,4, Jang KI2,3,4, Chae JH2,3,4
Affiliation: <sup>1</sup>Institute for Brain and Cognitive Engineering, Korea University, Seoul, South Korea.
<sup>2</sup>Department of Psychiatry, Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, Seoul, South Korea.
<sup>3</sup>Institute of Biomedical Industry, Catholic University of Korea, College of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea.
<sup>4</sup>Department of Biomedicine & Health Sciences, Catholic University of Korea, College of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea.
<sup>5</sup>Department of Psychiatry, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, South Korea.
Conference/Journal: Front Psychiatry.
Date published: 2019 Jun 7
Other:
Volume ID: 10 , Pages: 351 , Special Notes: doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00351. eCollection 2019. , Word Count: 335
Our previous study demonstrated that 3 weeks of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) increases P200 amplitudes and improves the symptoms of depression and anxiety in depression patients. In the present study, we investigated whether 3 weeks of rTMS treatment maintained the P200 amplitude in patients with depression at 6 weeks of follow-up. We measured the 6-week maintenance effects of rTMS using clinical questionnaires and an auditory oddball paradigm. Twenty-one patients with medication-resistant major depression participated in this pilot study. All patients underwent rTMS treatment for 3 weeks; they completed clinical ratings and performed the auditory oddball task at the pre-treatment, post-treatment, and 6-week follow-up visit (3 weeks after finishing rTMS treatment). The results revealed an increase in P200 amplitudes as well as improvements in the symptoms of depression and anxiety by 3 weeks of rTMS treatment. Furthermore, the results demonstrated maintenance effects on clinical ratings at 6-week follow-up. Depression and anxiety scales showed improvements in post-treatment and maintenance effects at the 6-week follow-up. Although P200 amplitude showed a significant main effect for 3 time points (baseline, post-treatment, and 6-week follow-up visit), at 2 time point comparisons, P200 amplitudes significantly increased in post-treatment compared to those of the baseline condition but did not show the maintenance effects of long-term rTMS at the 6-week follow-up compared to those of the baseline condition ( p = .173, Bonferroni correction). Standardized low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA) for P200 showed significant activation in the left middle frontal gyrus in post-treatment but no significant activation at the 6-week follow-up. Moreover, the amplitudes of overall topographic distribution were reduced at 6 weeks of follow-up. The 3 weeks of rTMS treatment induced the maintenance of the improvements in the symptoms of depression and anxiety. However, considering the results of the event-related potential (ERP) and sLORETA, 3 weeks of rTMS treatment may not be sufficient to maintain this improvement, implying that a treatment period of more than 3 weeks may be required to reveal the electrophysiological maintenance effect of rTMS.
KEYWORDS: depression; emotion regulation; event-related potential; maintenance effects; rTMS; standardized low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography
PMID: 31231248 PMCID: PMC6566016 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00351