Transcranial magnetic stimulation is likely to gain more popularity in the future because it is an almost side-effect free treatment and non-invasive.
http://elatafoundation.wordpress.com/
The Elata foundation was founded to promote rTMS. In the future they are seeking to develop plans for sharing to anyone that wants to have their own rTMS built.
It hasn’t been clinically tested for autism and it has only been used for auties with catatonia (where it was successful) but there are anecdotes that it has made depressed people not only not depressed but f. ex. smarter so it can be considered to have a wealth of positive effects (though I agree that for many autistics being smarter is not often necessary anymore…but there could be cascade effects on emotional circuits too).
One major downside could be said to be the cost (only a few places in the US perform commercial rTMS and they charge insanely; I’ve read about $2000 / week) and the other, lack of availability (there may be machines in use for research but they aren’t used – I have no idea why this could be).
Here’s a new randomized study on depression treatment which proves it to be effective.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/567659
Tags: rTMS, TMS, transcranial, transcranial magnetic stimulation
