We often come across snake-oil articles on many exaggerated claims about
magnet therapy, so let us balance out the situation by mentioning a few
websites which discuss the use of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) in
treating certain neurological or mental disorders (such as depression) and
investigating various functions of the brain:
<http://www.musc.edu/tmsmirror/TMSresrc.html>
<http://www.biomag.helsinki.fi/tms/>
<http://www.ists.unibe.ch/ists/index.html>
The first website introduces TMS thus:
<Physical basis
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a procedure in which electrical
activity in the brain is influenced by a pulsed magnetic field. The field is
generated by passing current pulses through a conducting coil, held close to
the scalp so that the field is focussed in the cortex, passing through the
skull. Magnetic induction dictates that the changing field acts on charges in
the tissue it passes through, causing small local currents to flow. When this
stimulation is delivered at regular intervals, it is termed repetitive TMS,
or rTMS. Recently, improvements in electronics (especially capacitors) have
enabled machines capable of alternating these strong magnetic fields at
physiologically interesting rates (up to 25 Hz), called high frequency
rTMS.....
Clinical Use
The early clinical uses of TMS were restricted to the field of neurology,
where it was used to examine conduction in the central and peripheral nervous
system by stimulating neurons. More recently, TMS and rTMS have been used to
investigate aspects of cortical processing, including sensory and cognitive
functions. The use of rTMS to excite local areas of cortex, combined with
knowledge of how local cortical activity can change during various disorders,
has raised the possibility of the use of rTMS as a therapeutic tool for
psychiatric and neurological disorders..... >
Dr Mel C Siff
Denver, USA
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Supertraining/
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