Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS): What is it and how does it work?

The principle of therapeutic magnetic stimulation is based on the use of short-duration magnetic pulses. The induced high-intensity electromagnetic field easily penetrates through clothes, cranium bones, and soft tissues. It impacts on the deep nerves, peripheral nerves, brain, and spinal cord inaccessible for other kinds of stimulation. If compared to electrical stimulation, magnetic stimulation does not cause painful sensations that usually occur due to activation of skin receptors under the electrode and does not require additional preparation time. 

Today, TMS is successfully used in:

• psychiatry: depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, addiction; 
• neurology: motor stroke rehabilitation, spasticity, pain, migraine, Parkinson’s disease, tinnitus, dystonia, essential tremor, Tourette’s syndrome, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, Alzheimer’s disease;
• pediatry: autism spectrum disorders, functional neurological disorders, Tourette’s syndrome, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, mental retardation (including speech delay).