ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Schizophrenia
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1551901
High frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation for auditory verbal hallucinations in schizophrenia-spectrum disorders: a naturalistic study
Provisionally accepted
- 1Centre Hospitalier du Rouvray, Sotteville les Rouen, France
- 2Cyceron, Caen, Lower Normandy, France
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Background. This study investigates the efficacy of high frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) for auditory verbal hallucinations in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders in routine clinical practice.Methods. In this monocentric study, data were collected on patients with schizophrenia treated by rTMS for resistant auditory verbal hallucinations from May 2020 to May 2024. Treatment efficacy was regularly assessed.Results. The data of 65 patients were collected. There was a significant improvement in the Auditory Hallucination Rating Scale (AHRS, p<0.001), in the Brief psychiatric Rating scale (BPRS, p<0.001) and in the Clinical Global Impression-Improvement (p<0.001) scores over time (from baseline up to six months). The maximum response rate (40%) was obtained after nine weeks of rTMS (on average (SD), after 30.6 (7.8) rTMS sessions). The responders were significantly younger than non-responders (p=0.002). The good tolerance of the rTMS treatment allowed excellent compliance: only seven patients (10.8%) asked to stop rTMS or were non-compliant.Conclusion. These data show the clinical interest and the good tolerance of rTMS in daily practice in patients with schizophrenia suffering from auditory verbal hallucinations.
Keywords: Schizophrenia, Hallucinations, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), High frequency rTMS, left temporo-parietal junction region
Received: 26 Dec 2024; Accepted: 07 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Moulier, Lemonnier, Dollfus, Guillin and Rothärmel. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Virginie Moulier, Centre Hospitalier du Rouvray, Sotteville les Rouen, France
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.