A summary of my TMS posts
Every day, I get questions about the TMS project I’ve gotten involved in at Harvard’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. TMS stands for Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation. What’s that? It’s the use of high power magnetic fields to induce tiny electrical currents in the brain that can change the way we think.
TMS has been in the news recently because it just got FDA approval as a drug alternative for depression. Dr. Alvaro Pascual-Leone, the director of the TMS lab in Boston, was one of the pioneers in the research that led to that approval, fifteen years ago.
Today, Alvaro remains on the cutting edge of neuroscience research with his work in autism. His scientists are using TMS on different areas of the brain to unravel some of the secrets of autism and how we think. It’s a remarkable journey.
I am often asked if I the stories I’ve written about TMS are in one place somewhere. Well, as of today, they are. Here you go:
This is my first blog post on TMS, from March of this year:
http://jerobison.blogspot.com/2008/04/standing-on-brink.html
Here’s the story of my first actual TMS experience:
http://jerobison.blogspot.com/2008/04/visit-to-beth-israel-deaconess-medical.html
Here's the second:
http://jerobison.blogspot.com/2008/05/visit-to-tms-lab-and-some-questions.html
And the third:
http://jerobison.blogspot.com/2008/05/brain-plasticity-in-action.html
Here you can see some changes in me:
http://jerobison.blogspot.com/2008/06/challenge-and-opportunity-of-autism.html
And finally, here’s a sort of summary of where we are this October:
http://jerobison.blogspot.com/2008/10/appearance-next-week-and-latest-from.html
There is a story, "seeing with a different eye," that one of the program participants wrote and allowed me to post.
http://jerobison.blogspot.com/2008/05/another-participants-view-of-tms.html
Here are two more stories from the blog of Michael Wilcox, one of the other participants in the study.
http://www.mfw.us/rTMS-experience
http://www.mfw.us/a-second-tms-experiment
The official site of the TMS lab is www.tmslab.org
TMS has been in the news recently because it just got FDA approval as a drug alternative for depression. Dr. Alvaro Pascual-Leone, the director of the TMS lab in Boston, was one of the pioneers in the research that led to that approval, fifteen years ago.
Today, Alvaro remains on the cutting edge of neuroscience research with his work in autism. His scientists are using TMS on different areas of the brain to unravel some of the secrets of autism and how we think. It’s a remarkable journey.
I am often asked if I the stories I’ve written about TMS are in one place somewhere. Well, as of today, they are. Here you go:
This is my first blog post on TMS, from March of this year:
http://jerobison.blogspot.com/2008/04/standing-on-brink.html
Here’s the story of my first actual TMS experience:
http://jerobison.blogspot.com/2008/04/visit-to-beth-israel-deaconess-medical.html
Here's the second:
http://jerobison.blogspot.com/2008/05/visit-to-tms-lab-and-some-questions.html
And the third:
http://jerobison.blogspot.com/2008/05/brain-plasticity-in-action.html
Here you can see some changes in me:
http://jerobison.blogspot.com/2008/06/challenge-and-opportunity-of-autism.html
And finally, here’s a sort of summary of where we are this October:
http://jerobison.blogspot.com/2008/10/appearance-next-week-and-latest-from.html
There is a story, "seeing with a different eye," that one of the program participants wrote and allowed me to post.
http://jerobison.blogspot.com/2008/05/another-participants-view-of-tms.html
Here are two more stories from the blog of Michael Wilcox, one of the other participants in the study.
http://www.mfw.us/rTMS-experience
http://www.mfw.us/a-second-tms-experiment
The official site of the TMS lab is www.tmslab.org
Comments
To save you some work in the future, if you do some consolidation posts like this of links of yours and others (which has merit and is easy for the readers) you should make a special tag like "TMS Summaries" or something like that and then you can just send people to the link that "label" and it's one stop shopping.
And it's like you aren't going to all of a sudden stop posting about TMS...
There's an IMAX movie about The Brain and it follows one of the Tour De France cyclist who had a head injury and some of the things with neurons firing and stuff like that. Not only is it about the brain, but it's also about mechanical objects with wheels that help people propel themselves with a velocity greater than what they can achieve as an individual.
But for me the most important question is not the degree to which we can effect changes if we hook a brain up to TMS, but the degree to which we can make lasting changes which are sustainable.
I am sure the findings are very important to understanding autism, but what practical implications are there for us? I don't think there is going to be a pocket-TMS out anytime soon, and by the looks of it (please correct me if I'm wrong) this research is not going to find out how to make changes stick anytime soon.
So even though this is very exiting news and I love to hear about research in this area, for now it seems it's more of a window to a reality that could-have-been and a kick in the nuts.
Kind Regards
My wonderful son of 15 years is between ASP and PDD-NOS. For the last year my husband, who practices Universal Energy, has been trying to stimulate my son's brain with quite positive results.
One of our interested fields is the zone of processing of Mental Arithmetic.
I was watching a video from the UC Davis Mind Institute, you might find this very interesting, the presenter Susan M. Rivera, Ph.D.
makes everything super clear.
Here's the link,
http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/mindinstitute/events/si_2006_recorded_events.html
and now select ...
Children with Autism Show Differences in the Processing of Mental Arithmetic
Once again thanks for your posting and all the best for positive results.
http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu
/mindinstitute/events/
si_2006_recorded_events.html
Children with Autism Show Differences in the Processing of Mental Arithmetic
Presenter: Susan M. Rivera, Ph.D.
Affiliation: UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute
Date: August 10, 2006
Length: 1:17:11