{"doi":"10.1016/j.brs.2020.06.044","title":"Bipolar Depressed Patients Respond Better to rTMS Than Unipolar Depressed Patients","abstract":"Background: The objective was to determine if patients with bipolar depression (BPD) patients respond as well to rTMS as those with unipolar (UPD). Design/Methods: A retrospective chart review of rTMS patients from 1/2015-12/2018 yielded 291 UPD and 36 BPD patients. All were treated with a figure-of-8 coil for a major depressive episode, with either high-frequency (HF) left-sided treatment or bilateral treatment with both HF left-sided and low frequency (LF) right-sided treatment. The outcome measures were the Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item scale (GAD-7) and the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9). Results: BPD patients had a more rapid response in PHQ (8.4 vs 11.2 by session 30, P=.012) and greater change by the end of treatment (PHQ change=8.1 vs 5.8, P=0.036) than UPD patients. No significant group differences were seen in GAD changes. Differences between bipolar and unipolar patients were seen during unilateral treatments (BPD vs UPD PHQ change: 10.2 vs. 6.7, P=.011) and were not evident when bilateral/mixed approaches were used (BPD vs UPD PHQ change: 4.64 vs. 4.64, P=.99). By 21 unipolar treatment sessions, 81% of BPD patients showed PHQ declines of 5+ points, vs. 65% of UPD patients. Regression analyses predicting pre-post PHQ-9 change found only two predictors: number of unilateral treatments (P=.007) and BPD diagnosis (P=.011). Conclusions: In our sample, rTMS was a potentially more effective treatment in BPD than in UPD. The greatest PHQ-9 change was seen in BPD patients treated with unilateral rTMS. This study supports the use of HF left-sided rTMS in BPD treatment.","journal":"Brain stimulation","year":2020,"id":131816,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.6425,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":586082,"name":"James M. Scanlan","orcid":"0000-0003-1652-2359","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":586083,"name":"Rebecca M. Allen","orcid":"0000-0002-7880-6958","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":586632,"name":"Larissa Gama-Chonlon","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":5,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:16:03.875886Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}