SMA Targeted Magnetic Stimulation Against Auditory Verbal Hallucinations
Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) are prevalent among patients with psychiatric disorders. Not only being highly stressful and functionally impairing, AVH often persist despite treatment. Recent attempts to treat AVH with add-on repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) when targeting the temporoparietal junction (TPJ), a language node in the brain, has gained limited success. The aim of this investigation is to reduce AVH with rTMS using continous theta-burst stimulation over a novel target, the supplementary motor area (SMA), in participants with frequent AVH, while also assessing potential neurophysiological mechanisms underlying the symptom.
• Reported AVH with a minimum frequency of at least daily occurrence, with onset more than one month ago
• Stable psychopharmacological treatment past month
• Reporting no occurrences of AVH for the past year
• Stable psychopharmacological treatment past month
• No life-time occurrence of AVH
• No history of psychiatric disorders as assessed with a Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview (M.I.N.I.)