Magnetic therapies have generally been shown to be ineffective, but I’ve just been reading about transcranial magnetic stimulation

This consists of placing an inductor close to the head of the patient and passing a pulsed current through the inductor. This generates a magnetic field in the vicinity of the inductor, which is alleged to induce a current in the tissues of the brain. There are some references available indicating that the method works, including a video of TMS making someone stutter, suggesting that it does have an effect on the brain. The wikipedia page (linked above) includes a long list of references (which I haven’t checked yet, I admit), although it’s quite badly written.

Anyone here heard anything about this, and whether it has any actual therapeutic value? It seems to me that if TMS (or repetitive TMS, rTMS) actually had any effect, any diagnostic tool that uses magnetic fields – notably fMRI – would (a) have no diagnostic value (because the magnetic field would induce currents in the tissues being imaged, providing false images), and (b) actually cause unintentional and possibly detrimental effects in the patient.

Well, at least there has been some research on it…

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3260536/

Also, an overview:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3656498/

And one more.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3241868/

That should be enough reading.

buffy said:

And one more.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3241868/

That should be enough reading.

Ain’t no one got time fo dat.

I’m not that interested, but obviously some people are.

Thanks buffy. Those, and particularly the first, look like good resources to get started with.

Perhaps it’s possible to have a completely fulfilling sex life this way, somehow, I mean women have the bluetooth vibrators, probably have an app’ on their iPhone or whatever to make adjustments as things go.

Not sure what the transcranial magnetic stimulator could be packaged into, a cricket helmet maybe. Anyway, us blokes have got beer, plenty of that.

On a less serious note, did see a documentary way back regards this, very interesting too.

For the moment I’ll just do with my makeshift unit, a degauss coil from an old TV rapped around my head, which is slightly better than the electric muscle stimulator that previously would put across my temples.

Has been on TV at least twice that I can remember. All I can easily comment on is that it acts to scramble signals in part of the brain, switching off normal functioning. It’s a very powerful technique, but has limited resolution.

FYI

Review raises more concerns over UQ academics accused of fabricating study into Parkinson’s disease

A review of 100 papers has raised further concerns about the work of two former University of Queensland researchers accused of fabricating a study into Parkinson’s disease.

Professor Bruce Murdoch and speech pathologist Caroline Barwood resigned from the state’s top university last year after a whistleblower raised concerns about the study.

Titled “Treatment of articulatory dysfunction in Parkinson’s disease using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation”, the article was published online in October 2011 in the European Journal of Neurology.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-21/more-concerns-over-uq-academics-accused-of-fabricating-study/5210838