Magnetic seizure therapy (MST)--a safer method for evoking seizure activity than current therapy with a confirmed antidepressant efficacy.

Since 1999, attempts have been made in the application of a new technique called magnetic seizure therapy (MST) or magnetic convulsion therapy (MCT) in the treatment of depressive disorder--as an alternative to electroconvulsive treatment. The technique of rapid rate transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is used to evoke intentional and repeated magnetoconvulsive seizures, though it requires the use of stimulation parameters practically inaccessible in commercially available rTMS magnetic stimulators. Magnetic convulsion therapy has been tested on monkeys as well as humans.

May depression be a form of epilepsy? Some remarks on the bioelectric nature of depression.

Epilepsy and depression (or, from a broader point of view, affective disorders) are formally two separate disorders classified among the groups of neurological and psychiatric diseases respectively. A precise analysis of the possible etiology, clinical picture and the applied therapy allows for identification of numerous common elements of these two disorders and similarities between them. It might seem an exaggeration to postulate that depressive disorders are a behavioral mask or form of seizure disturbances (epilepsy).