Bilateral Prefrontal and Insular TMS for Depression in Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SSD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) are often debilitating conditions, and thus not surprising that many SSD patients with comorbid depression have even poorer quality of life, higher suicide risk, worse clinical outcome, and higher rates of re-hospitalization than just having SSD alone. SSD patients with depression (DIS) suffered the unfortunate 'double whammy' by two of the most severe symptom categories in mental health.

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a non-invasive means for safely introducing the brain with electrical neural activity through magnetic stimulation on specific locations. Thousands of patients with depression and other psychiatric conditions have benefited from TMS through FDA-approved TMS devices. However, no TMS trial report has directly targeted DIS. The H4 coil is FDA-cleared to be marketed as deep TMS for short-term smoking cessation. This H4 coil targets bilateral insula and prefrontal cortices, which may underlie the depressive symptoms in SSD.

The patients with schizophrenia who also have depressive symptoms will receive rTMS via the H4 coil. The efficacy of using H4 rTMS for treating depressive symptoms in schizophrenia patients will be evaluated.

Inclusion criteria

• Male and female ages between ages 18-60 years.
• Ability to give written informed consent (age 18 or above).
• Diagnosed with schizophrenia-spectrum disorder and Evaluation to Sign Consent (ESC) above 10.
• Score of Calgary depression scale for schizophrenia (CDSS) ≥ 3.

Exclusion criteria

• Inability to sign informed consent.
• Any major medical illnesses that may affect normal brain functioning. Examples of these conditions include, but are not limited to: stroke, repeated seizure, history of significant head trauma with cognitive sequela, CNS infection or tumor, other significant brain neurological conditions.
• Significant alcohol or other drug use other than nicotine or marijuana dependence.
• Inability to refrain from using alcohol and/or marijuana 24 hours or more prior to experiments.
• Pregnancy, as classified by a woman of child-bearing potential who is not using a contraceptive and has missed a menstrual period; or by self-report; or by positive urine pregnancy test.
• For MRI, inability to participate in the MRI scanning due to metallic devices or objects (cardiac pacemaker or neurostimulator, some artificial joints, metal pins, surgical clips or other implanted metal parts) or declining to get in the scanner.
• Failed TMS safety questionnaire.