Therapeutic effects of individualized alpha frequency transcranial magnetic stimulation (αTMS) on the negative symptoms of schizophrenia

Previous research in clinical electroencephalography (EEG) has demonstrated that reduction of alpha frequency (8-13 Hz) EEG activity may have particular relevance to the negative symptoms of schizophrenia. Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) was utilized to investigate this relationship by assessing the therapeutic effects of stimulation set individually at each subject's peak alpha frequency (alphaTMS). Twenty-seven subjects, with predominantly negative symptom schizophrenia, received 2 weeks of daily treatment with either alphaTMS, 3 Hz, 20 Hz, or sham stimulation bilaterally over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Individualized alphaTMS demonstrated a significantly larger (F (3,33) = 4.7, p = .007) therapeutic effect (29.6% reduction in negative symptoms) than the other 3 conditions (< 9%). Furthermore, these clinical improvements were found to be highly correlated (r = 0.86, p = .001) with increases (34%) in frontal alpha amplitude following alphaTMS. These results affirm that the resonant features of alpha frequency EEG play an important role in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia and merit further investigation as a particularly efficacious frequency for rTMS treatments.