Stimulating Brains

#26: Nolan Williams – A Noninvasive Neuromodulation Revolution?


Listen Later

It was my great pleasure to talk with Nolan Williams, who is the mind behind the Stanford Accelerated Intelligent Neuromodulation Therapy (SAINT) protocol for treatment of depression. In this drastically intensified protocol, Fifty sessions of 1,800 pulses are delivered as 10 daily sessions over just 5 days – condensing what usually takes months to a single week. After making hands-on experience with deep brain stimulation, Nolan wanted to first work with this invasive technique in depression. His mentors told him that it wasn't a good time for DBS in depression, given two randomized trials had just failed, so he turned to noninvasive stim and realized, that – in comparison to DBS – we were heavily understimulating the brain, i.e., by far not delivering as many pulses in a given time interval. He also realized that the optimal targeting could not be determined by electrophysiology, but gladly Mike Fox had worked out a good method using resting-state fMRI. This way, the SAINT protocol was born, leapfrog-jumping the way we apply TMS to treat depression. After undergoing SAINT, 19 of 21 patients (90.5%) met remission criteria after a single week of TMS.

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

Stimulating BrainsBy Andreas Horn

  • 4.8
  • 4.8
  • 4.8
  • 4.8
  • 4.8

4.8

8 ratings


More shows like Stimulating Brains

View all
Radiolab by WNYC Studios

Radiolab

43,837 Listeners

The Daily by The New York Times

The Daily

113,121 Listeners

The Matt Walsh Show by The Daily Wire

The Matt Walsh Show

28,494 Listeners

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg by All-In Podcast, LLC

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg

10,254 Listeners

The Tucker Carlson Show by Tucker Carlson Network

The Tucker Carlson Show

16,982 Listeners

Continuum Audio by American Academy of Neurology

Continuum Audio

80 Listeners