Can magnets help relieve Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

October 22, 2008

Can magnets help relieve Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)?
By Alex Dobuzinskis


The emotional toll of war and terrorism weigh heavily on many Israelis, but researchers at Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem are studying ways to help patients deal with traumatic events through a novel technique -- magnetic stimulation of the brain.

The study involves patients with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, an emotionally wrenching condition caused by exposure to traumatic events. PTSD affects about 8 percent of Israelis who have been exposed to combat, while residents in areas under fire, like Sderot, are diagnosed with the disorder in far greater numbers.

Patients with PTSD often suffer flashbacks to the traumatic event that they experienced in their lives, and the disorder can stop patients from sleeping soundly. A patient may experience a cavalcade of fear and anxiety when something triggers the memory of a traumatic event.

Treatment for PTSD frequently relies on a combination of psychotherapy and psychiatric medications. American soldiers traumatized by fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan have even been prescribed MDMA, more commonly known as Ecstasy, as part of the therapy to help them deal with the flashbacks. But the use of magnetic stimulation, which has been shown to offer moderate help with depression, could also offer hope to those suffering with PTSD who haven't responded as well to drug therapies.

The study at Hadassah Medical Center involves only nine patients, and seven of them have already finished treatment. A few of the patients are from Sderot, a city subjected to ongoing rocket attacks, where 33 percent of the children suffer from PTSD, according to a study by Tel Hai College.

"Usually, we treat PTSD when the trauma was in the past, but they still live there under the same risk, and they still have the sirens going on every now and then, and they still feel that the bombs will fall on their house," said Dr. Moshe Isserles, lead study researcher. "It's crazy that so many people in Israel are living under stress and for continued periods of time."

In the study, patients are treated for PTSD with a technique called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), which the Food and Drug Administration recently cleared as a method to treat depression in the United States. With the TMS technique, doctors use a coil held near the patient's head to produce an alternating magnetic field and stimulate regions of the brain that are crucial to the management of PTSD.

The coil uses a frequency of no more than 20 hertz, which is far lower than the level that can do harm, said Dr. Abraham Zangen, a researcher at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Jerusalem, who helped developed the coil used in the Hadassah study.

The use of TMS is meant to alter the way patients' brains handle memories of traumatic events, the doctors said. Research shows that when patients with PTSD are reminded of traumatic events, they experience activation of a structure in the brain called the amygdala, which is responsible for processing deep emotions such as fear and anxiety, Zangen said.

Patients with PTSD who are reminded of traumatic events also suffer from inhibition of the prefrontal cortex, the region of the brain that controls logic and decreases the severity of emotional responses that originate in the amygdala, he said.

Through TMS, the technique of using alternating magnetic fields, doctors working on the Hadassah study are able to stimulate the prefrontal cortex in the patients.

The treatment could blunt the effects of PTSD by strengthening the synaptic connectivity between patients' prefrontal cortex -- the region of the brain responsible for more logical thinking -- and their amygdala -- the region of the brain that processes the deep emotions associated with PTSD, Zangen said.
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