Ensar Demir1, Oytun Erbaş2,3

1Istanbul Aydın University, Faculty of Medicine, İstanbul, Turkey
2Institute of Experimental Medicine, Gebze-Kocaeli, Turkey
3Department of Physiology, Medical Faculty of Demiroğlu Bilim University, Istanbul, Turkey

Keywords: Epilepsy, major depressive disorder, neurodegenerative disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, substance abuse, transcranial magnetic stimulation

Abstract

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), which is a non-invasive procedure, has become more and more prominent with promising studies in the last two decades. With a very low rate of side effects, TMS has the potential to be effective in many diseases, particularly in psychiatric disorders such as depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and epilepsy. In this review, we analyze and compile studies on the development and current status of TMS and the areas where it is used or can be used. The data were obtained based on the review of about 200 studies in the literature search between January 1995 and September 2020 by scanning two online database publishing in English and one online database publishing in Turkish and English. Tens of studies examined have yielded very successful results for TMS. In the following years, it seems to enter our lives among the combined treatment methods even at worst. Undoubtedly, this cannot be ignored, but it has not been standardized yet, including two or three United States Food and Drug Administration-approved applications. Still different methodologies and protocols are available. Above all, the fact that there are unsuccessful studies or a large number of studies showing that the effect of TMS decreases significantly in the long-term indicates that it should be approached with caution.

Conflict of Interest

The author declared no conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship and/or publication of this article.

Financial Disclosure

The author received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article.