TMS has been in clinics since 2008, and it has not stood still. Sessions are getting shorter, courses faster and targeting more personal. Here is what has changed and what is still being worked out.
Shorter sessions
A standard depression session used to take close to 40 minutes. Theta burst stimulation delivers pulses in rapid bursts and does the same job in about three. A large trial published in The Lancet in 2018 found that it worked as well as the standard protocol for depression.
Faster courses
Accelerated protocols give several sessions a day and finish in about a week. The best known, developed at Stanford, received FDA clearance for depression in 2022. These schedules are demanding and are not yet widely available.
More personal targeting
The original approach placed the coil by measuring from landmarks on the head. Newer methods use each person’s own data, whether brain imaging or EEG, to choose the site and settings. Our own qEEG-guided approach belongs to this group. In 2026 the FDA cleared an EEG-guided TMS system for PTSD in adults. Whether personalized methods outperform standard TMS across conditions is still being tested head to head.
New ages and conditions
Since 2024, specific TMS systems have been cleared as an add-on treatment for depression in ages 15 to 21. Clearances for OCD, anxious depression and smoking cessation have arrived over the past several years. Trials are under way in chronic pain, addiction, PTSD, ADHD and autism, where results so far are early and mixed.
What this means for you
New does not always mean better, and a clearance for one condition says nothing about another. When you read about a breakthrough, ask whether it was tested against a sham treatment, in how many people, and for which diagnosis. We’re glad to walk through any study with you.
This article is general information, not medical advice. Talk with your own clinician about your child or yourself.