Abstract
To the reader—
This issue of the journal contains a fascinating article from Seewoo et al. on accelerated dosing strategy of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in a rat model of adolescent depression. Although TMS is used with good effect as an intervention for treatment-resistant adult depression, the authors note that trials in adolescents have been less encouraging. “Most of these studies have examined standard once-daily, 10 Hz TMS delivered to the left prefrontal cortex,” they write, and a recent randomized controlled trial (RCT) “failed to demonstrate a significant difference between active and sham TMS in adolescents with MDD.”
Perhaps, the authors ask, TMS delivery in adolescents may need to follow new dosing strategies “as with historical pharmacology trials.” In particular, “accelerated TMS dosing has potential neurophysiological and pragmatic advantages that warrant study in adolescents with MDD.”
I encourage you to read this article, which provides good background on TMS as well as a compelling look at murine models. As Seewoo et al. conclude, “our findings demonstrate that accelerated LI-TMS may be more effective than the standard protocol in reducing depression-like behaviors in male adolescent animals and therefore provides preliminary evidence supporting the use of accelerated TMS protocols to treat depression in adolescent human patients.”
In addition, we see two articles from the Middle East investigating the application of English-language screening instruments in new languages. Sapmaz et al. note that “no scale exists to assess patients at-risk for bipolar disorder (BD) in Turkey,” and present their assessment of the psychometric properties of the Turkish version of the Bipolar Prodrome Symptom Interview and Scale-Full Prospective.
From the results of their study (youth aged 11–18 years with major depressive disorder [n = 63], bipolar spectrum disorder [n = 47], and healthy controls [n = 122]) the authors conclude that “the Turkish version of BPSS-FP has adequate internal consistency and inter-rater reliability, and sufficient convergent and discriminant validity to be used in research settings.” Furthermore, the results strengthen the evidence for the good psychometric properties of the scale in any language.
Bagajan et al. report on their evaluation of the Persian-language version of the Children's Depression Inventory in Iranian adolescents. “The construct validity of the questionnaire was confirmed,” the authors write, adding another “useful tool for early screening of depression in adolescents” to the international pediatric psychiatry toolbox.
Elsewhere, Saito et al. report on an RCT of duloxetine (Cymbalta) in Japanese youth aged 9–17 years with major depressive disorder. The authors conclude that duloxetine did not show superiority over placebo.