Personalized Image-guided Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
Target-Based Approaches in TMS
4/10/25, 1:35 PM - 4/10/25, 2:10 PM (US/Eastern) (35 minutes)

Personalized Image-guided Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
Desmond J. Oathes, PhD
Director, Center for Brain Imaging and Stimulation at University of Pennsylvania
Director, Center for Brain Imaging and Stimulation at University of Pennsylvania

At the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Dr. Desmond Oathes, PhD directs the Center for Brain Imaging and Stimulation in the Department of Psychiatry. He is also Associate Director of the Center for Neuromodulation in Depression and Stress as well as the co-Director of the Penn Brain Science, Translation, Innovation, and Modulation Center. He is an Associate Professor in Psychiatry and a Staff Psychologist seeing patients at the Center for Treatment and Study of Anxiety. He mentors Ph.D. students in the Department of Neuroscience and has secondary appointments in Neuroscience, Neurosurgery, Biomedical Engineering and Neurology at Penn. Dr. Oathes’ research incorporates a variety of methods to understand causal connections in brain circuits/networks for the purpose of optimizing neuromodulation which he has translated into clinical trials for depression and PTSD. He also works on methods development in interleaved/concurrent TMS/fMRI to advance and refine this growing field. Dr. Oathes’ research has been funded by institutional, foundation, donor and NIH grants.


It is largely assumed that neuroimaging allows personalized TMS to improve clinical outcomes in psychiatry but head-to-head comparisons are lacking. We have now verified brain circuit engagement of a novel fMRI-guided target using concurrent TMS/fMRI in healthy and depressed patients. We have also shown a clinically superior outcome for depression and PTSD using this fMRI-guided target.