Affiliations: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Centre of
Nervous Disease, University of Rostock, Rostock, Germany | Department of Neurology, Centre of Nervous Disease,
University of Rostock, Rostock, Germany | Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy,
Ludwig-Maximilian-University of Munich, Munich, Germany | Department of Psychiatry, Neurology, Psychosomatics
and Psychotherapy in Childs and Adolescents, Centre of Nervous Disease,
University of Rostock, Rostock, Germany | Psychiatric University Hospital Zurich, Zurich,
Switzerland | Department of Psychology, Laboratory for Biological
and Personality Psychology, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany
Abstract: Since various studies, including multi-centre studies, investigating
the effect of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) in depression
have shown different results, it is now important to research, which symptoms
of depression are most responsive to this kind of non-invasive brain
stimulation. Furthermore, an increasing interest of rTMS as a potential tool
for treatment of neurological and psychiatric disorders should be recorded.
Therefore, it is critical to investigate dopaminergic functional interactions
in the prefrontal cortex, and in particular, the effect of dorsolateral
prefrontal cortex stimulation on clinical symptoms depending on dopaminergic
concentrations in various brain regions. This short review summarizes important
preliminary data, which focus on the symptom-oriented effects of rTMS in depression.
