Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation as Treatment for Acute Suicidality in Adult Patients

Suicide was responsible for almost 40,000 deaths in 2011 in America. It is still singularly difficult to predict who is going to commit suicide and how to establish adequate interventions. Growing evidence supports the view that suicide is associated with poor decision making. Suicide is hypothesized to be triggered by stressful situations that create overwhelming psychological pain in an individual who chooses to terminate his/her own life, disregarding all future consequences. We have previously demonstrated rewarding impulsive choice common to both recent suicide attempters and suicidal depressed patients (1). Consistent with these findings, we hypothesize that high frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) of the left prefrontal cortex will improve impulsive response tendencies as measured by the delay discounting procedure, and this in turn will be associated with a faster resolution of suicidal ideation. To these effects we will be using a randomized control trial of rTMS in adult inpatients at the Psychiatric Research Institute (PRI) hospitalized for acute suicidality. At the conclusion of these studies, we will have tested the value of decision making in the development of suicide ideation and behavior, as well as piloted the use of rTMS in the treatment of these patients.