[Experimental and therapeutic neuromodulation of emotion and social cognition with non-invasive brain stimulation]

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is not only a highly elegant method for basic neuroscientific research that employs transient lesions to explore the relationship between brain structure and function but in a clinical context it is also a very promising approach to augmentation therapy in middle to severe grade depressive episodes. This overview illustrates the methodological basis of TMS and illuminates its neuromodulatory potential with reference to findings from recent studies on emotion regulation and social cognition. Against this empirical background, it becomes clear that preclinical studies on healthy participants are extremely important to develop innovative stimulation protocols and define functionally relevant target regions to be tested in clinical studies for therapeutic efficacy. Finally, the perspectives and limitations of functionally guided, individualized TMS neuronavigation will be explored based on task-independent connectivity and task-dependent activity measurements.